More than 10,000 mothers across Ireland have signed up to a website that supports mothers in Direct Provision.

The problem with donating clothes is that you need a middleman. Be it a charity shop, or somewhere else donations can be processed and distributed. This extra cog requires resources and volunteers to run.

Louisamay Hanrahan realised this when she was volunteering at a Direct Provision donation warehouse in March 2020.

“What we were finding was we had so many mums offering us kids’ goods that we couldn’t keep up with the demand,” she says. “And then on the other side we had loads of mums who needed the stuff [but weren’t getting it].”

The cost and logistics of getting items from one person to another is such a bottleneck that a lot of donations don’t get to the recipients when they need it. “It’s very expensive to run the storage units and vans,” she explains.

BEGINNINGS

“A mum came to me one day and said: ‘If you come back to me in six months, when my kid’s bigger I’ll have more stuff’. And I thought, whoever is going to get these items, their kids will be bigger in six months too,” says Louisamay.

“Kids grow so quickly that the clothes are barely worn, if at all.” For donating mums, while some items have sentimental value – they also take up a lot of space.

That was her light-bulb moment. Louisamay realised a software solution was all she needed to connect these parents, so they could do the passing on of the items between themselves. “A lot of people want to give – it’s about making that process work faster,” she says.

And Lousiamay had plenty of experience under her belt, having helped launch Deliveroo in Ireland and having been involved with the early-stage Patreon model. She also has her own marketing agency focused on early-stage start-ups, in which she now works part time.

She ran her idea past her contacts working in donation distribution for refugees. She also spoke with both the United Nations’ Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Irish Refugee Council before getting started, to see what they thought.

“I already had a network in Direct Provision centres so I didn’t really go through anyone, and [after that] they kind of spread it word of mouth themselves,” she adds.

It may have begun informally, but now she says the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Refugee Council recommend Let’s Match Mums to refugees in Direct Provision.

EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

Louisamay launched Let’s Match Mums in 2021 with a post on Instagram. “I honestly didn’t think it would take off so quickly,” she says. “Basically I thought we’d get 40 mums sign up on the first day.” She got 1,000 and it should have been more. “I woke up to messages from mums telling me [they couldn’t] sign up,” due to the form being full.

She’s since built a platform able to cope with the volume of requests and to make the process of signing up easier. She says she now has 10,000 mums participating, with 25 per cent of the refugee mums in Ireland registered.

Louisamay believes the strong start and growth were due to word-of-mouth, from influencers like Amy Huberman sharing on social media but mostly from mums using the service. “The mum community knows how to spread the word,” she laughs. Whether it’s the spoken word or through the many WhatsApp groups they’re roped into.

What Louisamay didn’t foresee was that Let’s Match Mums would give mums, on both ends, a connection to their wider community: “It’s quite traditional for parents to pass on their kids’ goods to other parents so it’s giving refugees access to that, while also giving them access to a mother in their community.”

NEXT STEPS

Even though Louisamay makes it all sound very simple, there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes. To keep it going, she’s applied for grants to improve the software, pay the volunteers who are helping her, and perhaps make a career out of it for herself.

“My dream is to be full time on it – I do see that happening,” she says, perhaps next year. What started off as an idea, a pilot project, has grown into something so much bigger in her life.

“It’s great when it’s that successful but it means you’re super busy,” she says. And you can only do so much on a shoestring.

Logistically, she still has too many donating mums compared to the number of recipients. “I’d love to be able to include other mothers on the receiving side,” she says. She’d also like to be able to cater to teenagers, who tend to be fussy about style and have more complex requirements.

And does she have a mum to bring stuff to? She does currently have a carload-full to bring on behalf of a mum who doesn’t have a vehicle: “So technically I’m matched as well, even though I’m not a mum.”

HOW IT WORKS

Let’s Match Mums pairs mums who have kids’ stuff to pass on, with mums in Direct Provision who need them. Here’s how it works:

>>Whether you’re donating items or are a refugee looking to receive goods, you will need to fill out the application form online on letsmatchmums.com. Donors are charged a small administration fee.

>>You will then be matched up, mostly based on the age group of the children but also based on the items you have/need. The donation system is about passing on clothes, but other items such as toys and buggies are welcome too. Some matches are immediate, but it can take Let’s Match Mums a few weeks to a couple of months to make a match.

>>As a mum looking to pass on items, you will need to travel to your local Direct Provision centre to donate them to the refugee you’ve been matched with. The donor decides when she has enough to donate, usually once every couple of months, and continues to do so as the children grow.

>>It’s rare but some matches aren’t a good fit. In that case, or if the children’s sizes no longer match up, get in touch with Let’s Match Mums by email and they will pair you up with someone else.

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