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20th December 2016
12:10am GMT
The refugee crisis has been making news around the world for the last couple of years and now a new cafe in Temple Bar seeks to highlight one of the massive injustices of the system here in Ireland.
Our Table is a not for profit cafe started by activists Ellie Kisyombe and Michelle Darmody.
It is the second stage of their plan to create awareness and will be open until the end of the year. They hope to find a permanent location for the cafe in 2017 to turn it into a full time business.
Our Table aims to highlight the issue of Direct provision. This is how they explain the current system:
In the Direct Provision system, 4,300 people seeking asylum in Ireland are denied the right to work and the right to cook. Adults in Direct Provision are given an allowance of just €19.10 per week and €15.60 per week per child.People in Direct Provision have no choice but to eat food prepared at set times on an industrial scale by companies profiting from the system. Banned from cooking in their rooms, some people secretly cook in toilets just to prepare something they want to eat.
The menu is small with a couple of options that change on a regular basis. I had bread with Syrian dips and falafel. Both were absolutely delicious and along with a bottle of sparkling water it came to a tenner.
I was too full for cake but along with 3fe coffee they have the perfect line up to keep people coming back. It was easily the most rewarding tenner I've spent for lunch in a long time, and I hope tonnes of people feel the same way and keep supporting this business.
Most of us will never experience direct provision or anything like it in our lives and losing the ability to cook a simple meal for you family is stripping away all dignity that people have.
If Our Table manages to achieve their goals it will be by far the most important cafe in the city.
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