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Locals team up with refugees to tell the truth about asylum
Embargoed 00.01 Tuesday 20 June 2006
Local people in three cities, Bristol, Nottingham and Liverpool, are teaming up with refugees from their communities in an innovative national project aimed at challenging attitudes toward those who seek safety in Britain.
The Refugee Awareness Project, launched on World Refugee Day, Tuesday 20 June, trains teams of refugee volunteers and British volunteers, enabling them to go out to local groups, listen to their concerns and explain what life is like as a refugee. The three-year project is operated by national charity Refugee Action in Liverpool, Nottingham and Bristol, and aims to hold a total of 750 sessions with a wide variety of recipients ranging from schools and business groups to sports clubs and tenants’ associations. As well as refugees, British people from all walks of life are volunteering with the project, from postmen and teachers to retired businesspeople.
Many communities are ill-prepared for the arrival of asylum seekers and fearful of the impact they may have. All too often these fears are fuelled by myth and rumour, and exacerbated by negative and misinformed media coverage, as well as the activities of far-right organisations that seek to capitalise on the fears of local residents.
This has a real impact on refugees and asylum seekers, who tell us they have a prevailing feeling of being isolated and excluded from community life. In a national survey of Refugee Action clients, 44 per cent said they had suffered harassment or abuse because they were an asylum seeker or a refugee. Almost 60 per cent lived in fear of harassment. (Michael Bell Associates 2005)
The project is carefully tailored to the needs of each community, offering locally relevant and up-to-date facts and statistics. To accompany the project, Refugee Action is launching a myth-busting pocket guide, entitled “Mobiles, Money and Mayhem: The Facts and Fibs about Asylum”, which aims to put information at the fingertips of local people so that they can influence others.
Sandy Buchan, Chief Executive of Refugee Action, explains:
“It is vital that people who live in communities to which asylum seekers are dispersed have access to reliable information. It’s equally important that people feel their concerns are being listened to, not dismissed. Otherwise organisations like the BNP will continue to capitalise on local fears and anxieties.
“The Refugee Awareness Project is about listening and learning, not lecturing.
“Rather than telling people what to think about refugees, we are helping people to think through the issue in a balanced way and to make up their own minds.”
Lack of understanding is widespread even among those who play an important role in their communities, such as teachers, faith group leaders and local councillors. The Refugee Awareness Project aims to improve the awareness of these key opinion-formers. Experience has shown us that the best way to do this is for people to meet a refugee in person and hear their story first hand.
Ikraam is a refugee from Somalia who holds Refugee Awareness sessions with groups in Bristol alongside a British volunteer. She explains:
“I started volunteering because I want British people to understand that refugees are normal human beings who have faced persecution. When I came here I was the only black person living in my area and I tried very hard to integrate.
“The asylum system is far from being what many people think. The system is not a soft touch. Even when we get refugee status, life is not always easy.
"People like hearing about real situations. I tell them from my experience how we suffered and how we survived. It helps people to understand that asylum seekers and refugees are just like them, wanting to be part of society.”
Glenys is a retired teacher who volunteers with the project in Nottingham.
“My first session was with youngsters in a white, working class area who had been excluded from school. I went with a refugee volunteer who told his story.
“The young people’s body language was very expressive when we brought a refugee into the room. But as he told them about the Democratic Republic of Congo they were saying, ‘we didn’t realise’. I think there is a perception that everybody is coming here to better themselves and this was the first time they realised people were coming here to stay alive.”
The project is supported by the Big Lottery Fund, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales, and co-financed by the European Refugee Fund.
If you would like more information about the project, or are based in Merseyside, Nottinghamshire or Bristol and the South West and would like to invite a RAP team to visit your group, call 020 7654 0673.
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For more information, or to request an interview, please call the press office on 0161 233 1956 / 020 7654 7714 or 07810 757 752 (out of hours).
Notes:
1. Refugee Action is an independent, national charity working to enable refugees to build new lives in the UK. We provide practical advice and assistance for newly arrived asylum seekers and long-term commitment to their settlement through community development work, and received 30,000 visits from asylum seekers last year. As one of the country’s leading agencies in the field, Refugee Action has 25 years’ experience in pioneering innovative work in partnership with refugees.
2. Creative team Dan & Ray
Email: dan@norris.plus.com
www.danandray.co.uk
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