Kindness is what brings people back
The Muslim Sisters of Éire have seen a huge increase in the numbers availing of their soup runs in Dublin city
THE young mother and her son sit on the ground with their backs against one of the stone pillars at the entrance of the GPO on Dublin’s O’Connell Street. Together they pull a long baguette of bread from one of the two plastic carrier bags of food they’ve just received from the Muslim Sisters of Eire soup run, and as pigeons peck the ground around them, they share it.
With the hood pulled up on her dark green raincoat, you can just about see the woman’s pale and freckled complexion, her eyes are heavily rimmed with black liner. The little boy, who looks about five years old, is also pale and freckle-faced. He seems content to be munching on hunks of crusty bread stick while his mum counts how many pieces of fruit they’ve been given.
They pay little attention to the busy, at times slightly chaotic scene behind them, where a line of trestle tables have been carefully arranged in front of the post office. Covered in red gingham oil cloths, they are laden down with wicker baskets filled with bags of crisps, all kinds of fruit, wrapped loaves of bread, scones and cookies. A couple of polystyrene boxes hold premade sandwiches and ready-made meals of pasta and curry.
About seven women wearing face masks and hijabs patiently hand out the food to the service users who shuffle past them, carefully choosing what they need.
There are hundreds of them and they started queuing for this weekly Friday night soup run at 5.30pm, even though they know the volunteers won’t start distributing food for at least another hour and a half.
Most leave immediately, bringing the bags back to their families. Others stay around, standing at the grimy window sills of the GPO eating alone, or sitting in small groups, glad of the company while they tuck into silver foil trays of curry and rice.
Pre-Covid, the Muslim Sisters of Eire (MSOE) usually handed out between 250 and 260 meals on a Friday night. It’s now double that number.
‘For a long time we saw the same faces every week, mostly men,’ explains volunteer Aisha Ali, who has been helping out on the soup run since it began.
‘But in the last few months there have been a lot of new faces, and a massive increase in the number of children. They come here asking for stuff for their school lunches during the week.’
On any given night in Dublin you will find a group of volunteers handing out food and drinks to those who need them. They each take a different patch, some base themselves at the top of Grafton Street, while others stand at spots on O’Connell Street or Westmoreland Street.
John Nugent and his friend Kevin, both sitting on small stools a couple of metres away from the busy tables, go to most of them each night.
‘I’m in a hostel on Gardiner Street,’ says 80-year-old Kevin. ‘We come for the company more than anything. I usually get the curry here, it’s very good.’
‘We go to a few different places,’ says Nugent, who is 77 years old. ‘Sometimes two in the one night, we might go over to Grafton Street later.’
Nugent waves at an open foil tray at his feet. ‘I’m waiting for a fork and knife, one of the volunteers kindly offered to get them for me,’ he says before cheerfully adding, ‘We’re alive and well, that’s the main thing. We’ve proved to the world that we have coping skills and we’ve lasted the test of time.
‘I try to hold on to my sanity as best I know how and believe me, it’s not easy. All these crises, one after the other, and now this corona thing. You have to be able to see light at the end of the tunnel and I’ll be honest, I see feck all light at the moment.’
On this grey, dank evening it’s hard not to agree with Nugent. The city is busier now that the shops have opened and the wide, dirty pavements are full with people clutching bags from Penneys. Few of them pay much attention to the queue that stretches down to the start of Henry Street.
Lorraine O’Connor, project manager and founder of MSOE, began the soup run in 2015 after several years of handing out meals at Merchant’s House Quay homeless charity. Married to a Muslim man and originally from Coolock, she converted to Islam in 2005.
A mother of four, who has a Masters in women’s studies, she set up MSOE in 2010 in order to tackle any preconceived notion that Muslim women are oppressed and to help integrate them more into Irish society.
She arrives at Prince’s Street, a small road in between Penneys and the GPO, at 6.15pm and for the next half hour shouts directions in her broad Dublin accent to her small crew about what should go where and when.
In truth, they need little direction, many of them have been volunteering with her since the beginning and the operation runs like
‘It’s hard seeing the same people, and the children’
clockwork. As well as the women, there are about half a dozen men who help with ‘crowd control’.
John Hennessy, a 64-year-old from Blanchardstown, comes in every night to the city to help with various different soup runs.
‘Without them, people would be lost,’ he says. ‘It’s hard looking at the same people coming in every night, and then the children. A lot more are starting to come in because they’re being put out of the hostels and hotels. There’ll be a lot more on the street soon.’
Hennessy stands at the top of the queue, handing out face masks and offering to sanitise people’s hands. He lets just three people at the table at one time.
‘They respect what you’re doing, they know you’re looking after them,’ he says. ‘There’s every nationality and from 14 and 15 years up to 80 years old. But the hardest is looking at the very young children who come here with their parents.
‘We don’t let them near the table at all, for health and safety reasons, all the hot food. There’s no messing here, Lorraine runs a very tight ship.’
Up until last year the most meals the MSOE handed out in one night was 260; in recent weeks that number hit 580.
‘It’s the homeless crisis combined with the Covid-19 crisis,’ says O’Connor. ‘You have this huge new thing, Covid poverty — people who have lost their jobs; people on social welfare who have never been on it before.
‘We’ve had people in from Debenhams who got no redundancy, young people who worked in the hospitality sector who can’t pay their rent and are looking for food to keep them going during the week. It’s all the ripple effects of Covid.’
John Pett has just finished his curry. A very young and fit-looking 65-year-old, he’s happy to chat about how he now relies on a couple of these soup runs each week.
‘I’ve been using them since Christmas and my quality of life is better now,’ he explains. ‘I haven’t held down a 9-to-5 job since the bank crash in 2008. I did a number of jobs, the last one was deputy press officer of the Green Party.
‘I went into homelessness for 14 months, it was a project in itself trying to get out of it and it was very hard in parts. But because I have a good attitude, people wanted to help. I came out of
homelessness about 12 months ago, I have a little studio now.’
When I suggest he might not be the most usual kind of service user, he gently disagrees.
‘You’d be surprised,’ he says. ‘I often see people here who are better dressed than I am, that’s the reality of Covid and accumulations of all sorts of things. This is a terrific service, I eat better because of it. I eat twice a day as opposed to once a day.
‘Also, it gives you some social interaction. I was talking to a young man recently who has just gone into homelessness and because of my experiences I was able to tell him where to go to get help.
‘I come here every Friday and the one at the top of Grafton Street on a Saturday night. The quality of food is actually better than I can make and they take such pride in what they’re serving. There’s a crowd that comes on a Sunday and an American woman does the meanest spaghetti Bolognese I’ve ever tasted.’
Much of the food that the MSOE provides is supplied through donations from supermarkets, restaurants and food factories.
It is a registered charity, fully compliant with the HSE and the charity regulator.
Mohammad Rashid, owner of Safco Fine Foods, has brought 115 ready meals from his factory in Tallaght, which were made specially to donate to tonight’s soup run. He’s been coming for the last six weeks or so.
‘I saw it on Facebook and I saw a lot of young children,’ he says. ‘It went into my head straight away and just wouldn’t leave, so I contacted them through Facebook. Today I’ve brought curry and rice, sometimes it’s veggie burgers or falafel wraps — whatever we can do to help.’
People have got involved through different ways. Mohsin Javeid, a 31-year-old IT worker who lives in Phibsboro, was parking his bike on Prince’s Street five years ago when he spotted MSOE setting up its tables.
‘Lorraine was taking the stuff out of the car and I asked if I could help,’ he says. ‘I come in after work. When I started it wasn’t nearly as busy as it is now. It’s very rewarding work, I stay until about 9.30pm, sometimes longer.
‘I find it very surprising, seeing the young kids and the families, who are living in a country that’s very developed and established. I’m not blaming the Government, they’re trying their best, getting people back to work and in the shelters, but still, there are a lot of people who have been very unlucky.’
By 7.30pm a huge amount of food has already been given out, yet the tables are constantly and efficiently replenished by Lorraine’s team. There are a couple of sticky moments, people who try to skip the queue or who just take things from the baskets without waiting their turn.
But the volunteers have been trained in how to deal with these incidents, there is no aggression, only kindness. ‘There are people who are on some type of medications, who get panicked or aggressive,’ says Rashid. ‘But we are trained how to de-escalate; kindness goes a long way.’
Burdana Jawad, a mother-of-four who lives in Dublin 15, has been working on the soup run for almost four years.
‘I heard about it through a friend and I knew Lorraine from way back,’ she says. ‘People come from all over to help, there’s one woman from Balbriggan and one who comes from Portlaoise.
‘The situation is very desperate now, people are looking for hygiene products, clothes and shoes, a tent, or they are looking for someone to have just a little chat.
‘If they are high on something, it doesn’t matter, we are expecting this kind of stuff. When I started I had a few issues, I was a little judgemental. But I have learned and my mind has changed a lot.
‘When I first saw Lorraine down here, there was a person who was very drunk and aggressive, shouting “give me something”. They need sugary stuff, so now I know after training what they are looking for. We don’t have to shoo them away.
‘I tell them, “sit there brother and I will bring it to you”. You have a little bit of a connection and show them respect.
‘I’m a Muslim, I don’t hug strangers, but one time a couple came, they were so old, I gave them some things and they were so grateful. They asked if they could hug me, so I broke the rules and said, “of course”. They had tears in their eyes. We are so lucky, those of us who sit in our own homes.’
Jessica and Danny, a handsome looking couple, are waiting to the
‘You have this huge new thing, Covid poverty’ ‘It’s hunger and need that brings them’
side of the tables. Between them they have three small backpacks and a suitcase. A volunteer calls Danny over and hands him a brand new tent, still in its plastic bag.
‘I was over at the Lighthouse and they said there was a better chance of getting something we needed here,’ says Danny, 31, referring to the Christian mission centre that feeds the homeless.
‘We won’t bother with the food, we’re happy to get the tent. I’m not sure where we’ll go yet, I know a couple of places that are safe.’
The couple have been together for almost a year.
‘We met on the street,’ says Jessica, 21. ‘Because we’re not registered as a couple, we can’t get into the hostels together. And our money [benefits] would go down too much if we registered as a couple.’
‘We want to stay together,’ says Danny. ‘I love the girl to bits. I only got out of prison, I’ve served my debt to society. I just want to get clean now and take her with me.’
Back at the tables, the queue is still long, with a dozen or so young children darting in and around the service users.
The ‘stewards’ in their high-vis jackets playfully shoo them away, now and again handing out cartons of juice to help persuade them to step back from the action.
‘No children at the tables please,’ shouts John Hennessy. ‘Away from the hot food, thank you.’
‘It’s an organised chaos, for sure,’ smiles long-term volunteer, Aisha Ali, a 39-year-old mum who lives in Sandyford, 39. ‘But it’s always about being kind, that’s what keeps bringing people back, they feel the volunteers are approachable and that they actually care about them.
‘Sometimes a bond is formed between the volunteer and the service user. You can feel the desperation in people. No one really wants to queue up in this weather, just for the fun of it. It’s hunger and need that brings them.’