AN IRISH community volunteer group has smashed a €25,000 fundraising target created to help house a Syrian refugee family in Dublin.
Home from Home D6 is made up entirely of volunteers from the local community and was set up with the express aim of housing a Syrian family-of-four in the Irish capital.
After negotiating a deal with a private landlord to house the family in a two-bedroom property in Rathgar, the group set themselves the fundraising target of €25,000 to ensure the arriving family are fully supported for a minimum of two years.
The funding will go towards providing support in the form of everything from food and clothing through to activities that will help the arriving refugees further integrate into the local community.
Working in conjunction with the Irish Red Cross, the group raised the funding through a combination of fundraising events like coffee mornings and other anonymous donations.
According to the Home from Home D6 fundraising page, €5,462 came from online donations while €19563 came from offline contributions.
Created with the approval of Ireland’s Department of Justice, the group is led by a group of 12 women eager to give two parents and two children a fresh start.
Speaking to Independent.ie, Home from Home D6 member Anna Kierans confirmed that a Syrian family from Lebanon is due to arrive in Dublin over the next few weeks and could be fully settled in the home by Christmas.
"We’re due to have a Skype call with the family next week. They have two boys aged 4 and 6 and up until now they wouldn’t have known where in the world they were going to end up," Kierans said.
She was keen to stress that their work won’t end once the family are settled in the property either. In fact, it’s only the beginning.
"We will become their neighbours, befriend them, help set up play dates with the kids and help them to become financially independent and settled into the community.
"We’re not going to be shoving lots of people into a small space. We are giving them somewhere they can call home."
