Dr Naomi Masheti is a Psychologist and a three-time graduate of UCC. She leads Cork Migrant Centre and is a Psychosocial Practitioner and a guest lecturer at the School of Psychology, University College Cork. Naomi was the recipient of UCC 2020 Athena SWAN Equality Award. 

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Naomi is the inspirational Programme Director of Cork Migrant Centre. It was established by the Presentation Sisters in 2006.  The Centre is committed to advocating on behalf of migrant children, families, and communities and to ensuring they have access to the services and supports they need to alleviate the day-to-day challenges and provide them with the best possible opportunities to empower them individually and collectively.

CMC Programs and activities are conceptualised within a psychosocial framework which pays attention to migrant’s individual, family and collective risk and resilience processes in relation to ways in which migration (pre-migration, migrating, post-migration), social, cultural, structural (migration policies and practices) and institutional (health, education, political, economic, and religious) processes shape their lives. The Centre aims to promote healthy psychosocial functioning by addressing risks and nurturing strengths and/or resilience in these levels. The programs are delivered mainly by migrants themselves in a culturally sensitive way.

 

The programs target all children, youth, adults, and families from direct provision centres in Cork as well as migrants settled in the local Cork community (refugees/asylum seekers and economic migrants) to strengthen their wellbeing capacities and aid their integration into the Irish Community. The psychosocial programs target empowerment by giving these vulnerable individuals a voice and strengthening their physical, emotional, cognitive, and social health. It also aids in their integration process. CMC engages with this population at their most vulnerable (when they have little or no English at all, when they are so insecure, uncertain, voiceless, stressed) when their psychosocial vulnerabilities act as a big challenge to engaging with available resources.