We at RISN are survivors. We are committed to survivors. RISN is not in it for money. However, we will ensure that Irish State support is adequately provided to survivors and their families by right as much as by the Irish State’s duty and constitutional responsibility.
Are you not tired of the way we survivors are treated and want to do something about it? That’s how we feel. We’re doing something about it at RISN.
We’d like other survivors to join in that effort if they wish. We’re tired of abuse by a State that has utterly failed us. We at RISN dare to put our head up to do something ourselves in good will and good faith. We’re survivors and know exactly what ought to be done. We don’t need others to tell us. We do need other survivors to make sure no one’s suffering or issue is dismissed or left behind. We have read how other survivor groups have been faced with difficulties of one sort or another. RISN wants to work with those groups. We’re also very aware that the vast majority of survivors have not even applied to the administrators of the Redress Fund where there have been only 6,000 applications many of them repeated. If the actual number of applicants is only say 2,000 that means only 13% of the 15,500 applicants of redress have applied for further assistance. Where are the remaining 87% of survivors? RISN wants to hear from all those survivors and asks everyone to get the word out we’re looking for them to hear their voice and have their voice heard. RISN must be from the ground up not the top down.
RISN is only starting and yet some might make out we’re like others. Well, we’re not. We believe fellow survivors can work together. Everyone else seems to say we can’t because some survivors are noted as turning their anger at anything that moves in this space. We need to build our own bridges amongst ourselves so we can get the job done that others claim we can’t. Lawyers took €160 million. Caranua has taken its generous cut. Enough! We’re better together!
Let’s be clear, RISN is about survivors ensuring survivors are heard. Everyone matters. RISN has a goal to ensure what matters to survivors is addressed, and remedy and relief is provided as it ought by moral conscience as much as a constitutional duty of the Irish State.
If you wish to help tell us what survivors want in jobs, homes, medical support, disability support, participation in local communities, education, physical and sporting community involvement, help with family matters, and end the betrayal that has been typical over so many decades, then by all means do tell. We want to know at RISN.
RISN is not for tearing down but for building up. Building up the services and supports that ought to have been provided, long before now, to residential institutions survivors and their families.
We’re the real deal, we’re authentic, we’re fellow survivors and we know the heartache, the trauma, the abuse, the disrespect, the alienation, the loneliness, the depression, the anxiety caused by a society which would rather we might just go away.
RISN says, “Enough is enough!” There are going to be different rules from now on, and we survivors are going to be the authors of those rules on how to treat residential institutional survivors with the dignity, justice and compassion that all citizens should know from the services and supports in the Irish State.
RISN is ready to work with all survivors of residential institutions abuse, openly, honestly, and for the very best interests of all, none will be left behind by us. We care about the most vulnerable amongst us, perhaps even more so.
RISN is not for squabbling as that plays into the hands of those who take advantage of division. Our slogan means what RISN means, we’re Better Together!
RISN
