Niamh O’Reilly chats to Ellie Kisyombe about living through direct provision, making tough choices for her children and why keeping silent is not in her DNA.

Ellie Kisyombe came to Ireland in 2010 as a refugee seeking asylum, fleeing her native Malawi and leaving her children behind her. The single mother was separated from her twins for almost six years as she navigated the murky and often complicated waters of Ireland’s much maligned direct provision system for almost a decade, before getting her residency in late 2019.

“Being separated from my children was a very, very tough time for me. Friends helped and I managed to get them here eventually. But I had to grow as a mother,” she says. “It was trying to bridge the relationship with the kids, when they didn’t understand you or why you left them behind.”

Fast forward to today and the family is thriving. Her twins Tina and Maurice are in university, with Tina getting her Law degree this year and her son Maurice in the second year of his marketing course.

“We are doing well and are happy in our home,” Ellie says. “We are just setting down now and we take it one day at a time.”

While the family are finally getting the chance to live their normal lives, there’s no question the system took its toll on them all, especially Ellie who had to make tough choices to protect her children, not all of which were clear to her kids at the time.

“There was a time when things were difficult, it was not easy for me as a single mother to shape the kids, but they couldn’t realise what strength and courage it took for me to go through what I did”, she recalls. “I embraced them, I tried to cover them under my wings, because it’s very easy in that scenario to lose your kids, for them to go off in another direction. It was a tough situation, and everyone looks for survival in different ways.”

Ellie, who had to flee Malawi after her politically active father died in suspicious circumstances and she feared repercussions for her own political activism, has had to reconcile her decisions with the effect it had on her relationship with her children. 

“I’ve tried as a mother to protect them and maybe there was a time when I had to be selfish to do it in my own way, but now they can wake up and realise actually I wasn’t selfish, but I did it for their best interests”, she says. “Now we are trying to start over living our lives. Unfortunately, we came out of direct provision and then Covid happened, so we sort of went from that into lockdown, but we are taking one day at a time.”

“I’m looking forward to starting to live my full life”, she beams.

Despite all she’s been through, including the threat to her life in Malawi, Ellie is not one to stay silent, she is in fact a powerhouse of positivity.  While many asylum seekers could be forgiven for simply keeping their heads down and focusing on their own stressful situations, Ellie decided to dive in and challenge head on what was clearly a broken system.

“I started volunteering with the refugee council because the system was not in good shape.  We had many rights that were taken away, so I started campaigning for the right to work or the right to cook.”

While improvements have been made to the direct provision system, which is due to be scrapped in 2024, Ellie experienced the tougher end of the regime. “Many mothers were living in the one room with their family and not allowed to make meals for their children. You couldn’t even make choices on the different cuisines you wanted to cook. I’m from southern central Africa where our food is different, we have organic, healthy meals and food in direct provision is often mass produced and processed and all of that is unhealthy.”

Things had to change, and food was to play a pivotal role in Ellie’s endeavours. Together with Michelle Darmody she co-founded the community based social enterprise, Our Table. “It brings together asylum seekers and the Irish community to break bread and share a space where asylum seekers could get work and people could come and listen to their stories instead of hearing them on the street.”

The idea was a hit and the initiative has not only fed thousands, it’s forged long lasting friendships and has broken down barriers between communities. 

Through her work with Our Table, Ellie was given a scholarship with Darine Allen in Ballymaloe Cookery School, which Ellie describes as “one of my life changing moments.” She’s since gone on to launch her own brand of hot sauce called Ellies Kitchen. She was also the first asylum seeker to run for the council in 2019 and while she didn’t get elected, she didn’t regret a second of it. But where does her neverending font of hutzpah come from? 

“From my family” she declares. “For me coming here has given me a meaning for myself and an understanding that overnight life can change. I grew up in a privileged family and I would never have thought I would find myself in my position and it could happen to anyone.”

Despite her ups and downs, for Ellie, Ireland is home. “The community is a huge part of my life, everything that I have now is here. I love Ireland, it has given me everything that I needed

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