DIGNITY NOT DESTITUTION Conference to mark Refugee Week 23 June 2017

THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO ATTENDED THE CONFERENCE AND

CONTRIBUTED TOWARDS EXPENSES. WE BROKE EVEN - JUST! THANKS ALSO FOR THE FOOD AND CLOTHING DONATED FOR DESTITUTE MEN AND WOMEN SEEKING ASYLUM. Please keep it coming! We would appreciate your feedback, a sentence or a short paragraph or any thoughts or comments you may wish to offer. Thank you.

Attendance 53 registered; 5 possibly

present but not registered + 5 speakers

2 staff, 2 Trustees. Total 67

VIDEO: How Does the Asylum System Work available on

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/09/its-a-shambles-

data-shows-most-asylum-seekers-put-in-poorest-parts-of-britain

WE ARE BROTERS Demetrios Trifiatis (2013)

Don’t look at me as though I am an alien or stranger,

Don’t let the dagger of antipathy fly out of your eyes,

I am your neighbour!

Don’t call me foe, antagonist or rival,

Don’t roll up your mistrustful sleeves to have a fight,

I am your friend!

Don’t hold this murderous weapon in your kind hand,

Don’t deny me the right to work, to eat, to live,

I am your BROTHER!

If destiny willed me to be born on this side of the frontier line,

If my parents wished me these clothes to wear and taught me their own dance

Do we have to be adversaries?

If fate desired me to speak this foreign tongue,

And the colour of my skin to be different than yours,

Do we have to be competitors?

If necessity decided in this country, in the North, or South, or East, or West to live,

Do we have to be opponents?

If I believe in Jesus, Jehovah, Krishna, Buddha, Brahma or Allah,

If this is my philosophy, my tradition, my history and my culture,

Do we have to be enemies?

NO! A million times NO!

Please, look at me with new eyes and throw away your injurious prejudices,

What do you see but a person like you whose wants, desires and hopes are for the

same things in life?

Happiness, family, well-being, a home, some friends, some love,

Look! I walk, I talk, I eat, I sleep, I dream, I laugh and I cry, just like you,

I’m born, I grow up, I learn, I suffer, I bleed and I die, just like you,

I’m a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter, just like you,

You see, we are alike, we are the same,

WE ARE BROTHERS!

Listen to me my neighbour, my friend, my ally, I am telling you the truth:

We are victims of schemes well- planned in advance, by deceitful, evil-hearted men

who wished, your destruction and mine,

They: masters of savage forgery, dividers of mankind,

Have tricked us throughout history with well-orchestrated lies, and with treacherous

stories, these intellectually impotent criminals, have instilled tons of poison in your

heart and mine,

Thus, by cultivating hatred, bitterness and rage, managed to shape us to ruthless

foes, to merciless enemies, to cruel animals

Please, listen to me! It is true! We are BROTHERS!

Let us, therefore, with irresistible will cross all frontier lines, that the past

has erected between us, thus making divisions vanish.

Let us, with supreme power, break the bonds of history, religion and culture and

run into each other’s arms,

Let us uproot, from our tormented hearts, thorny mistrust that was planted

there thousands of years ago,

Let us seize ammunition from destructive hatred and make war capitulate,

Let us sink the cholera of bitterness in the affectionate sea of universal

brotherhood and finally,

Let us unite and march to higher claims, to incomparable glory, where

peace can blossom today,

Thus, both of us my brother, AT LAST! Will go to sleep, fearless of each other

tonight!

END

OUR SPEAKERS

Revd. Sally Smith introduces Sheila Podmore describes Sarah Wilshaw discusses sexual health Roza Albagachieva Jubilee Burslem

Andy Simmons and David Smyth G4S Jude Hawes Citizen Advice and chair Phil Mayland

A Taste of Home Prepared

by:

Roza (Ingushetia),

Sandrine (DRC), Hoa

(China), Narow (Iraq)

(Syria), Akbar (Iran),

Gulzimar (Afghanistan)

One attendee commented: ‘I thought the lunch was fabulous and served by people with such joy and generosity.’ Memories of the food will linger long after those of the conference have faded!

ASHA wishes to place on record our thanks to Phil Mayland who steered the programme and to the speakers whose presentations were succinct and to the point and allowed time for questions.

Continued

Godefroid Seminega: FGM in Stoke

Dabashish hands round the mike

JACKIE GREGORY’S SUMMARY OF THE CONFERENCE together with some other comments below.

Am I not a man and your brother? This quote by potter and anti-slave trade campaigner Josiah Wedgwood epitomised a core theme of a conference to mark Refugee Week. Dignity not Destitution was organised by ASHA with the aim to increase practical support for asylum seekers and to widen recognition of asylum seekers as people “just like us”. It also brought together organisations so that information could be shared and collaborations established. As Angela Glendenning, one of the organisers, said: “We need more Josiah Wedgwood’s today.” The conference began with a moving reading of Demetrios Trifiatis’ poem: “We are brothers” performed by ASHA’s volunteers. Picking up the theme, Rev Sally Smith of Sanctus began with a challenging appeal; could anyone with investment money think about buying a house and loaning it to Sanctus for asylum seekers to use for a few years, before selling it again. She said there was a desperate need because at various points throughout the asylum process, people can find themselves homeless. Rosa, an asylum seeker, gave her story saying she had found herself homeless and that Sanctus had come to the rescue. Rosa said of her homeless experience: “It was horrible, I didn’t have the language, I didn’t know where to go, it was really hard. I felt very weak.” Sanctus currently has seven houses that they can use as emergency accommodation, and which may be needed for a few days, weeks or months. The Jubilee Project in Burslem aims to help integrate asylum seekers by providing English language sessions and a variety of workshops. They seek funding so that they can pay for a qualified teacher and also pay bus fares so that asylum seekers can attend the sessions. Sheila Podmore, from the project, explained: “It is the law that asylum seekers can’t access English lessons at colleges until they have been in the city for six months. With no English, they have no friends, no community. “You can really see the difference in their faces when they are making friends. They need English more than anything.” The project has linked up with arts organisations such as New Vic’s Borderlines, the Appetite programme and B-Arts to give asylum seekers a variety of experiences and a chance to take part in dance, drama and a feast day which included bread making. Asylum seekers do experience hate crime, but this is an issue which is largely under reported. Jude Hawes of the Citizens Advice Bureau said it was vital that these crimes do not go unrecorded, as there is often a pattern known as Murmur to Murder, where low level abuse escalates to something else. Jude said: “Most people who do something awful, like the van attack on the people leaving the mosque, usually started out by doing low level stuff and they weren’t challenged. Hate crimes are at high levels since Brexit. As people realise that other people haven’t been sent home, these are the kind of times when people are attacked. It is really important to report it. Only by reporting will resources go into the Police, for example, to tackle it.”

Specialist mental health nurse Sarah Wilshaw for the Asylum seeker and refugee support scheme explained how she receives referrals from the Home Office about who is coming into the city, and so immediately puts in a package of help in place to support them. Many have suffered and seen many horrors before arriving in the city, and carry this mental burden with them. She told how she had given support to an isolated woman who had been gang raped, enlisting other services to help. The woman has now been able to start a new life and has moved on from Stoke-on-Trent. Sarah said: “We are the hub of the wheel and reach out to the spokes, which are the other services.” G4S has the contract from central Government to house asylum seekers when they first arrive in this area. Andy and Dave from G4S gave an insight into their work. The initial accommodation is hostel-style in Wakefield or Birmingham where asylum seekers will typically stay for up to three weeks before being offered dispersed accommodation e.g. houses in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent. They will stay in this accommodation until the Home Office makes a decision on their application. Dave said that G4S carry out a postcode check so that asylum seekers aren’t placed in remote areas without services or hostile areas where they may not be accepted. During questions it was revealed that G4S housing staff now wear body cameras. There were concerns about privacy, and civil liberties from the audience. G4S said the initiative was to support both asylum seekers and housing staff from potential abuse. In the final talk Godefroid Seminega explained the work being done to prevent young girls being subject to female genital mutilation. Some asylum seekers come from countries where this is practised, and if a mother has had FGM, then her daughter is more likely to go through FGM between the ages of eight and 15. In Stoke-on-Trent members of the asylum community who come from countries where this is practised have been trained to help other women to speak out about their needs. These volunteers work with other services such as the police and the charity Savana. Godefroid said: “Two of the community champions were men, and their role was to go into communities and talk about the work and get support for what we are doing.” He said it was now imperative to gain further funding to allow the work to continue. “Women are still dying because they are victims of FGM,” he said. Lunch from around the world was then served by ASHA’s asylum seekers’ community who had prepared dishes from Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, to name a few. It gave all 60-plus conference attendees at ASHA’s headquarters in Shelton a chance to eat and share friendship and ideas with each other. Josiah Wedgwood himself would have approved. Wendy Proctor writes: I attended the conference organised for Refugee Week at ASHA, entitled ‘Dignity Not

Destitution’. This offered a good turn-out of delegates and visitors, and a well-organised, varied

programme of speakers, including organisations such as Sanctus (of whom I was only dimly aware),

Jubilee (not even heard of them before – to my shame!), and the more-established but invaluable

CAB. We also benefited from expert contributions from Mental Health (Sarah Wilshaw), staff at

ASHA - in particular Godefroid Seminega - and somewhat surprisingly, G4S – which I more often than

not tended to associate with prison escort and custody rather than housing. Everyone’s attention

was gained immediately by a short Guardian video, which really brought home some sense of the

major barriers experienced by refugees, as did a very personal contribution and poem - extremely

thought-provoking and emphasising how we take liberty, peace and basic needs completely for

granted in Britain.

Eileen Moran comments: The food provided by the asylum seekers being helped by ASHA and other organisations afterwards was really outstanding and varied, reflecting different cultures and nations. As a ‘veggie’, I limited myself to the non-meat options, but they were delicious. My initial feeling after the conference as I sat in my car before leaving was "So much food for thought”. I had become aware of so many people and organisations who are involved in the help and support of my asylum seeking friends whom I had met walking in Hanley when they arrived from Wakefield. They always have such beautiful smiles when we meet. Thank you all from me for all the help, support and advice you continue to give them. I hope that our friendship will continue when they are no longer asylum seekers and become refugees.

My last thought before turning the key in the ignition and driving home was to be thankful for

having experienced so many new tastes. What a wonderful lunch we were given.

Useful Reference: Top 20 facts about refugees and asylum

seekers https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/4935_top_20_facts_about_

refugees_and_asylum_seekers

25May2017

CONTACT

ASHA North Staffordshire Unit 7 Hanley Business Park, Cooper Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent ST1 4DW T: 01782-363122 or 0742-900-7234 E: info@asha-uk.org www.ashanorthstaffs.wordpress.com Burslem Jubilee Burslem Lighthouse, Moorland Road, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent ST6 1DW T: Sheila Podmore 07958-250281 or Dianne Yeadon 07532-108207 E: pody38@yahoo.com www.burslem.org.uk

Sanctus St Marks Sanctus, Broad, Street, Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent ST1 4LT T: 01782-266066 E: sanctus.stmarks@outlook.com www.sanctusstmarks.co.uk/