'I do not feel worried in Cork': Sanctuary Runners on hope, friendship, and the marathon
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Omar stands in the fading light facing west, his long fingers gripping the railings by the side of the bridge. In the distance the sun is setting, beneath him the last of the evening traffic is weaving its way home. This is Omar’s thinking time, when he dreams of his future, when he hopes and imagines — when he steadies himself to focus on brighter days in the city which has become his home, his safe harbour. When he whispers: ‘This is Cork’.
“I cross the pedestrian bridge from where I am staying on the Kinsale road to Tramore Valley Park where I run or walk. Often I stop and take some time to gather my thoughts and to look out over Cork. To take in this place which has taken me in,” he tells me after finishing a long shift. He works in security at a store in the city. Long hours… but he doesn’t complain, Abdiaziz Hassan Omar never does.
Even when he spent five months, some during a freezing winter, in a tent at the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum in Dublin, he didn’t complain.
The 30-year-old former English teacher from Southern Somalia is one of over 300 people who has signed up to take part in Sunday’s Cork City Marathon as a Sanctuary Runner. Almost half the team is made up of people who live in Direct Provision, with most running the 10-kilometre distance. Omar is running the half marathon.
Like so many of the wonderful people who have run with Sanctuary Runners in Cork in the past six-and-a-half-years Omar is soft spoken, incredibly decent, and always seeking to help others.
“When I discovered Sanctuary Runners I think it gave me a new perspective on my life — it gave me something to focus on and helped me to look to the future, not the past. The past is painful so I try to picture my life and my future,” he says.
“As long as there is Sanctuary Runners there is hope. It is like a therapy for me, to help me heal and it is the same with many others who have come to Ireland seeking refuge.”
I ask Omar about anti-migrant sentiment in Cork, about racism and any experience he has had of it here, but he has nothing but good things to say about the city and the country he now calls home — and in which he was successful in attaining international protection.
I’ve learned over the years that many who have come to Ireland seeking sanctuary are often reluctant to speak negatively about their adopted home — even if they have seen or experienced negativity.
They don’t want to cause any fuss or seem ungrateful. And many immediately compare how they are treated here to how they have been treated in their home countries or elsewhere — the bar is so low that anything resembling decent is lauded as near perfect. Its unsettling.
By the Marina in Cork Dr Angela Flynn has been leading marathon training sessions for Sanctuary Runners every Tuesday and Thursday night for weeks now. Friends and strangers gather in their Sanctuary Runner blue, they run, they laugh, they get to know each other as equals. Angela has been a Sanctuary Runner since the very start of our movement, she’s a rock and her energy and passion lifts us all.
“The anti-migrant sentiment that we hear so frequently now couldn't be further from the world we inhabit when the Sanctuary Runners get together,” she explains.
“When I hear these comments, I have to remind myself that they come from a place of ill-informed 'scapegoating'.
"If people got the chance to meet the beautiful, friendly, generous, kind, and hardworking migrants that I have had the pleasure of meeting through the Sanctuary Runners, I truly believe they would change their minds,” she says.
Its hard to avoid the negative posters, the hateful graffiti, the screeching manufactured rage. I ask Angela if in recent weeks those running with the Sanctuary Runner groups speak about the souring discourse.
“Never. They never raise it, we never raise it. We just run in our blissful bubble. Sometimes they might ask questions about different politicians and parties, especially now with the posters up everywhere. Occasionally, if we discuss the difficulty getting housing the challenges for people of colour will be referenced.”
And it's that ‘bubble’ which is so precious. One of positivity and decency. One that so often feels absent in today’s Irish society. A bubble which allows the most hilarious of conversations.
Like a few months back when I joined the Marina group to train and found myself running alongside the tall, strong figure of Rabie Ramadan M Gohar. From the region of Nubia in Southern Egypt — a marginalised ethnic minority in the country, Nubians are dark-skinned and over the years have not enjoyed the same treatment as other Egyptians.
Rabie loves soccer. So do I. He used to be a successful football coach in Egypt and Kuwait, I struggle with Fantasy football! And at the time we met the African Cup of Nations was in full flow.
As we ran we got talking about the beautiful game but one particular, not so beautiful, game led to convulsions of laughter to the point where we both found it hard to breathe.
Only a few years separate Rabie and I, and so we could both vividly remember the Republic of Ireland V Egypt scoreless clash in the group stages of Italia’ 90. It was arguably the worst game to ever have taken place at a World Cup. That was the game which prompted Eamon Dunphy to throw his toys out of his pram and Big Jack to ban the bauld Eamon from press conferences.
“Oh my God it was so bad,” recalls Rabie. “You know after that game they actually changed the rules of football to stop the goalkeeper from picking up the ball from a back pass. So because we were both so awful in that game we changed football for the better! Go us!”
There was something so beautiful about these two middle-aged men, strangers five minutes before, one from Ireland, one from Egypt, running through the darkness in Cork and howling in laughter at how bad a game of football played over three decades earlier was! It was blissful in its silliness.
Rabie is a gas man and a great addition to our Sanctuary Runner team. He’s been studying Irish online in recent weeks and greeted me with a ‘Conas atá tú’ recently.
He arrived in Cork last November and says he’s already made so many connections in the city. “It reminds me of my home town. Like when I walk into the city now I always meet someone I know, whether that’s through the Sanctuary Runners or some other way. I feel it is a city of welcomes. This is Cork.”
And becoming part of the Sanctuary Runners has drastically improved his health.
“Well, let me tell you,” he says “I smoked for so many years but on the day I came to my first running session with Sanctuary Runners I decided to stop.
"I had tried so many times over the years but it never worked. But because the training sessions by the Marina are every Tuesday and Thursday it gives me a structure. I would say ‘okay I now must stay off the cigarettes until the next run’ and so on. Now I have not smoked for five months. I feel so much better.”
So there you have it. Not only can Sanctuary Runners help bring people together, break down barriers, combat misinformation about migrants in society, be a movement for sound, decent action ….but also it can help you get rid of your vices!
Mona El Kafsi, and her shadow Adam, from Douglas joined Sanctuary Runners after covid restrictions lifted and on Sunday Mona will run for her third time in the marathon in Sanctuary Runner blue.
Adam is nine, and a proud Sanctuary Runner, and if he was old enough to run in the marathon he’d be on the starting line too. By the way he’s no longer his mom’s shadow, he runs at the speed of light and most of us haven’t a hope of catching him. We’ve become his shadow! Mona says:
She told me of how when in Cobh recently as a spectator for the Sonia O’Sullivan (a friend of our movement) 10 mile-run she got this huge feeling of pride and excitement when cheering on a passing Sanctuary Runner who she didn’t know. “He was one of us, one of the family,” she said.
I had a similar experience recently when in London during the marathon there when a speedster flew past me on the road near Tower Bridge wearing a Sanctuary Runner top. He was soon followed by the wonderful Eamon Hayes, director of the Cork City Marathon, a proud and cherished Sanctuary Runner himself.
On Sunday in Cork the same will happen as those in the crowd roar on our runners, joggers and walkers. Its what makes Cork our home marathon.
For Oleksii Zatsarynskyi, from Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine, that support provided an enormous lift when he ran with Sanctuary Runners in the marathon last year.
“It was amazing and I now run with Sanctuary Runners whenever I can. This is a team which brings people together, it supports our spirit as well as helping our psychological and physical health,” he tells me.
Oleksii, a father of four, is in Cork with his wife and three youngest children and can be found at Tramore Valley Park most Saturdays for the parkrun wearing his Sanctuary Runner top and a fetching bandana. He is a lovely man and despite everything always positive and eager to share moments of raw joy and fun.
And the simplicity of what we do is so important. When people ask me ‘what is it that Sanctuary Runners do?’ expecting a multi-layered, academic, carefully convoluted explanation I often just answer in two words – ‘We Run’. Because being decent to all shouldn’t be complicated. It doesn’t need to be political or rooted in activism. You just need to be human, to be sound.
For Carmen Burns, a retired nurse originally from Ballinlough, who worked in the South Infirmary hospital for 38-years, being a member of Sanctuary Runners is so important because it enables her to show her humanity and it gives her so much back.
“I remember when I first saw some of the gang running out at the parkrun in Ballincollig I thought to myself I’m definitely going to join and I did. That was in 2019 and I’ve loved it all, the running, the chats, the craic, I was even part of a Sanctuary Swimmer group.
"And when I see all those blue shirts flying down Patrick Street on Marathon Day it just fills me with so much pride in my city, I feel like there’s a warm glow around me, Its so special. This is Cork.”
Carmen is a beautiful human being. She’ll kill me for saying that but she really displays all the characteristics of what is best about those in our society who see the need to show compassion for, and solidarity with, others.
“You know I often think that being in the Sanctuary Runners makes me understand how incredibly fortunate I am — that because of nothing more than an accident of birth I was born in a place, and at a time, when I never had to go hungry or there was no conflict that threatened my safety. I often think that if people just thought about that it might make them understand that everyone leaving their homes, and their loved ones and all that is familiar, needs solidarity, needs friendship and, above all else, needs respect.”
To find out more about the Sanctuary Runners or join one of our 40-groups across Ireland, visit Sanctuaryrunners.ie
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