CASE STUDY 1 - SAPHARA NEWCOMER WELCOME EVENT
SAPHARA EDUCATIONAL CHARITY PRESS & MEDIA RELATIONS
Ninety languages. One story worth telling.
More than ninety languages are spoken by primary school children across Northern Ireland. Most people don’t know that. And most people don’t know about the small charity working quietly, and extraordinarily, to make every one of those children feel they belong.
Saphara brings together refugee and asylum-seeker children with student teachers from Northern Ireland’s traditionally separate education systems. Their annual Newcomer Welcome Event is one of the most quietly remarkable things happening in education on this island.
They just needed someone to help the world see it that way.
The brief
Generate media coverage for the Newcomer Welcome Event and tell the story in a way that reflected its real significance.
The approach
Rather than leading with the organisation, the event and the numbers, I decided to take a different approach and lead with the human and social stakes.
The press release, social media content and email newsletters were all built around what this event actually represents; belonging, inclusion, aspiration. The more than 90 languages spoken in Northern Ireland primary schools. Children from socially deprived areas seeing a university campus for the first time. Student teachers from divided communities learning alongside each other.
The story wasn’t the event. The story was what the event meant.
The results
BBC Newsline attended and filmed the event
BBC broadcasts - Newsline coverage and Radio Ulster interview with CEO and students involved.
The broadcasts gave concrete evidence to CEO when following up with the chair of UNHCR who wanted to visit the work of Saphara and their next event in June.
Local radio Q105 also covered the event, interviewing CEO and students involved. The UNHCR follow-up has led to the potential of invitations being extended to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland for Saphara’s next event in June 2026.
A small charity’s annual event became a province-wide conversation. Because the story was framed around the people it served, not the organisation behind it.
