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Based near the direction provision centre Viking House in Co Waterford, the New Community Men’s Shed has evolved beyond the basic structure of a shed and provides a lifeline to new community members, one of whom is Bahati Matambera.
Bahati is a member of the New Community Men’s Shed and was born and raised in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He moved to Ireland a little over six years ago.
Having joined the shed last June, Bahati has found being a member beneficial to keeping himself busy and improving his English.
“Coming from Africa, to a completely different culture, the shed has definitely helped me. I can speak English now.”
The same is true for Georgia-born Zurab Ramisvilii, who came to Ireland in 2017 and joined the shed in October 2019.
“My English wasn’t so good, so I joined the shed in the hopes of improving that,” Zurab says.
Both Bahati and Zurab are both speaking unbroken English, and seem to have reaped the benefits of this particular men’s shed.
A lack of basic English has been a common theme amongst shedders in the New Community Men’s Shed, which was set up by Frank Kennedy.
Frank had noticed that at least 95% of the immigrant population who went on to study failed in their first year of university.
“We found that language was a problem, access to IT was a problem, study environment was a problem, everything was a problem.
“What we also found was that people really needed a big brother, someone to say, ‘Hassan, don’t do dog grooming, go and do something else’.
“Someone that knows you and knows the situation. So that’s really how the New Community Men’s Shed came about.”
Through Frank and Tom Farrell (another founding member) they have been able to help improve the English amongst the shedders, with Frank adding that their success has meant less members.
“We had seven fellas there who went on to do a barista training course. All seven of them have jobs now, so they’re no longer members of the shed,” laughs Frank.
We’re going to engage with a few tutors to come in and teach the men some key skills, for example payroll
But English isn’t the only thing that Frank and Tom want to improve, with an IT course on the agenda for 2020.
“With sale of kindling we made and support from the local Lions Club and Vincent DePaul we have an overhead projector and eight laptops.
“That’s something that is very important, we’re going to engage with a few tutors to come in and teach the men some key skills, for example payroll.
“Basic office procedures, so they can walk in to an office and say, ‘I can do that’. We’ve a panel of 24 people waiting to start now.”
It’s clear that the New Community Men’s Shed has gone beyond the basic description of a shed, and now provides a lifeline to many new people coming to Ireland.
People coming to the New Community Men’s Shed have been granted a way of speaking with their fellow community members and have a chance at living successfully in Ireland through Frank and Tom’s training programmes.
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