During this time of COVID-19 we stay connected with one another by means of various technologies and are grateful for the advances in them over the years to allow us this connection with families, the wider mercy family and our mercy ministries. Welcome English is one of our ministries in Cork. Here people from direct provision centres, the Syrian resettlement programme and family reunification programme are welcomed and taught English.

The Director of the Centre is Angela Murphy. We are truly blessed with this extraordinary woman who lives mercy in a unique and life giving way.  Through our communication with Angela we have been touched deeply by her ongoing work from home with the students at this time of social distancing and anxiety. Some tutors have been set up, wherever possible, with ongoing classes online.

Angela communicates daily with the most vulnerable who would normally attend the centre. This is done to reassure them that this crisis will end and they are not alone. She is often the only social contact in their lives from day to day.

Angela speaks of the Welcome English community as a social connection for the students. All share a common bond – that of being displaced people, having left behind family, work and country. Angela’s kitchen in Welcome English is known as her global office where (pre-COVID-19) 53 nations met on a daily basis. It is a place where over a cup of tea or coffee many troubles are shared, concerns voiced, laughter is heard and in private many tears are shed.

For us, Angela embodies mercy at its best and helps us touch hope and gratitude as we see and experience that mercy is alive and well lived in a wider world during this time of cocooning and isolation.

 

Julianne Sullivan rsm
Southern Province