Community Sponsorship

What is the Community Sponsorship Programme?

Community Sponsorship is  an exciting programme that gives people across Ireland the opportunity to come together as community sponsorship groups and welcome resettled refugees to their local communities.

Refugee families have often been waiting for years on UNHCR resettlement lists in Jordan and Lebanon. The serious escalation in Israel's military offensive in Lebanon has led to a humanitarian catastrophe for many of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees who fled there to escape war and persecution. There are widespread reports that Syrian refugee families are unable to access basic aid such as food and clean water, and in some cases have been denied access to shelters. The Irish Community Sponsorship is a way to provide a welcome and a new home to people desperately in need of sanctuary.

Community Sponsorship Groups are asked to prepare supports, fundraise and find accommodation and are then matched with a refugee family in need of resettlement by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. Nasc, Doras, the Irish Red Cross and the Irish Refugee Council work together to implement Community Sponsorship in Ireland.

Community Sponsorship groups befriend and help newcomer refugee families to navigate different aspects of life in Ireland. Some of the supports a Community Sponsorship group provide include:

Preparing in advance for the arrival of a family to your community
Fundraising in advance of the arrival of the family
Sourcing accommodation for a period of 24 months for a resettled family or individuals
Providing supports as needed for a minimum period of 18 month, including:
- Orientation supports in their new home;
- English language provision;
- Interpretation supports;
- Guidance with social welfare etc.

You can find out more about the national Community Sponsorship Programme here.

Text against background of woman standing on a foggy pier: "Often there’s very little that one person can do except for send in a few bob to charities. So the idea of helping being a kind of ‘rent-a-granny’ to a group was absolutely brilliant." — Marguerite, Community Sponsor

Why get involved?

There are lots of reasons to get involved in Community Sponsorship. By getting involved, you are directly supporting and offering friendship to refugees as they move to Ireland for the first time. You are helping to build bridges between newcomers and settled communities and you are bringing people together. Groups we’ve worked with have found the experience overwhelmingly positive and told us that the being part of a community sponsorship group connected people and helped create more welcoming communities. You can learn more about some of the groups in Cork and the families that have arrived in this feature in The Echo.

In an October 2024 pastoral letter, the Catholic Bishops' Conference urged parishes across Ireland get involved in the Community Sponsorship Programme which welcomes refugees through providing hospitality and support.

Where do I start?

You could join a group locally or, if there isn’t one in your area, how about starting your own?

We work with lots of groups, all of whom met in different ways. Some already knew each other. Others were complete strangers who responded to a poster in the local shop. All of them have played an important role in welcoming refugees, building open communities and making meaningful connections from the experience. You can read more about how to start a group here.