For 15 years, Muslim Sisters of Éire have stood on the ground, side by side with families and children affected by poverty. We have served meals on our soup runs to parents and children who come not just for food, but for dignity.
We have provided safe spaces through youth clubs and summer projects, giving young people opportunities to grow, to belong, and to hope. We have supported families in hostels and direct provision centres, where children are often the most invisible victims of poverty.
Child poverty is not a statistic—it is reality. It is the child who goes to school without breakfast, the teenager excluded from activities their peers enjoy, the young child forced to grow up without the safety of a home.
Our work has always been about more than emergency support. It is about building pathways out of poverty, breaking cycles of disadvantage, and ensuring that every child has the chance to thrive. But this work cannot fall on charities alone. It demands urgent, collective action from all of society.
Child Poverty Week, we renew our commitment—and our call: No child in Ireland should have to choose between hunger and hope. Let us measure our nation’s progress not by its economy, but by how it treats its most vulnerable—its children .