Here
Alone: Refugee Children in the UK is a one-day conference
jointly sponsored by Christians Aware and the Leicester UnaccompaniedChild Initiative, held at Quaker Meeting House, Queens Road.
Legislation defines an “unaccompanied asylum seeking child” as a child who is
- applying for asylum in their own right, and
- is separated from both parents and is not being cared for by an adult who by law has responsibility to do so
A
child may move between the unaccompanied and accompanied categories
whilst their applications are under consideration, e.g. where a child
arrives alone but is later united with other family members in the
UK, or a child arrives with their parents or close relatives but is
later abandoned, or a trafficked child, or one brought in on false
papers with an adult claiming to be a relative.
As
soon as anyone who has been treated as a child under these conditions
turns 18, they have to apply for refugee status. Only seven per cent
of such applications are successful. If refugee status is granted,
that is valid for five years. At the end of that period, one has to
apply for leave to remain.
Barbara Butler (Executive Secretary of Christians Aware) introduces the day and welcomes the 30 attendees present at the start of the conference. She asks us to bear in mind that we are not talking about the giving of charity in the conventional sense (e.g. of handouts or food parcels) but the giving of hope, hospitality.
The
conference proper starts with us watching a five minute-long
animated film, Rachel's Story, one of a series of short films
from Seeking
Refuge, broadcast on
BBC 2 in June this year. Seeking Refuge contains five stories
giving a unique insight into the lives of young people who have
sought asylum in the UK, told by the children themselves. Each of the
films conveys different experiences of young refugees and asylum
seekers, while communicating the collective struggles and hopes of
young people fleeing from their country of origin, and the issues
they face adjusting to life in the UK. The stories powerfully explore
themes including persecution, separation and alienation, and seek to
inform young audiences about some of the hardships these children
face.
First speaker is David Pitts, who sets the topic within an international context. David is a member of Christians Aware who every year spends time teaching English to children in camps on the border between Thailand and Burma. Something that sticks in my mind from David's talk is when he considers the words that Paul attributes to Jesus, "It is better to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35) in relation to those who have nothing and who are wholly dependent on others. It's not good for people to be on the receiving end all the time - they need to have opportunities to give.
First speaker is David Pitts, who sets the topic within an international context. David is a member of Christians Aware who every year spends time teaching English to children in camps on the border between Thailand and Burma. Something that sticks in my mind from David's talk is when he considers the words that Paul attributes to Jesus, "It is better to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35) in relation to those who have nothing and who are wholly dependent on others. It's not good for people to be on the receiving end all the time - they need to have opportunities to give.
Alison
Birch, from the Leicester Unaccompanied Child Initiative,
speaks about the situation with unaccompanied asylum seeker
children in Leicester. There are reckoned to be 195 unaccompanied
child asylum seekers in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland.
Of that number, 110 have come here from Afghanistan. She shows a clip
from BBC East Midlands Today about the work of LUCI at The Centre
project, based at Central Baptist Church. Many children and
young people are sent to LUCI by other local authorities in the East
Midlands, because of the diversity of Leicester, as it's assumed that
they'll be able to be put in touch with members of their own
community more easily here.
Brandon
Akem, who arrived here from Cameroon aged 16 - volunteers for LUCI
while studying Law at Leicester University. He speaks briefly about
his own experience in both receiving and giving support.
Beate
Dehnen (artist and author, teacher and educationalist) speaks next on
the topic, "Refugees and Art: Art as Refuge". She shares
examples of the kind of material created in her workshops with asylum
seekers and refugees, which she has used a platform on which to
empower people who feel powerless, to help them find a voice when it
appears that no one can hear them. Some work by Beate and
participants in her workshops on the theme, "Here Alone" is
on display today. Most of the attendees take advantage of
opportunities to view it throughout the day.
Last
session of the morning is given over to watching the short
documentary, Hamedullah:
The Road Home by
Sue
Clayton. Sue was
hoping to be here herself, but unexpected family commitments
have prevented that. Sue is passionate about empowering young people
to express themselves through social media, film-making and video
diaries. Her film introduces us to Hamedullah Hassany, who arrived in
this country as an unaccompanied child asylum seeker a number of
years ago. Upon turning 18, he is deported to Afghanistan, leaving
behind friends, home and studies in Canterbury, where he had been
making a life for himself. Sue gave him a video camera on which to
record his experiences in Afghanistan Although Afghanistan is
nominally his home country (though Kabul is not his home town),
Hamedullah is a fish out of water there. After spending some of his
most formative years in England, he has nothing in common with the
people he has been sent to live among and can barely make his
way in their society. The people with whom Hamedullah comes into
contact assume that, having been deported from the UK, he must be a
criminal or some other sort of undesirable. Most shun his company
because of that, while others play upon it for their own ends. He
returns to the village where he grew up, only to find the homes there
abandoned and decaying, like ancient ossified relics. Hamedullah
soon comes to the grim conclusion that he has nothing to do, nowhere
to go and no one on whom he can rely for help or friendship. We
witness his transformation from a bright and cheerful, friendly and
gentle, motivated and optimistic young man to one who is bitter and
cynical, deflated and degraded, pessimistic and poisoned.
Hamedullah is still in Afghanistan, subsisting on small amounts of money that Sue Clayton sends him from sales of the DVD or fund-raising activities on his behalf.
I felt moved and appalled by this film, in fairly equal measure. Moved by the plight of Hamedullah, appalled at how anyone thinks this is a civilised thing to do to another human being.
Lunchtime next: a walk in the crisp December air of Queens Road is required after what I've just sat through. It takes a few minutes before I feel able to sit and talk with anyone else, or to eat anything.
Hamedullah is still in Afghanistan, subsisting on small amounts of money that Sue Clayton sends him from sales of the DVD or fund-raising activities on his behalf.
I felt moved and appalled by this film, in fairly equal measure. Moved by the plight of Hamedullah, appalled at how anyone thinks this is a civilised thing to do to another human being.
Lunchtime next: a walk in the crisp December air of Queens Road is required after what I've just sat through. It takes a few minutes before I feel able to sit and talk with anyone else, or to eat anything.
After lunch, we have a choice between one workshop with Alison Birch or another with Lisa Matthews, Campaigns Coordinator (South) for the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns. Alison's workshop focuses on what is being done - and what can be done - in Leicester, Lisa's on national campaigns. At the end of the workshop period, we all come back together and Lisa sums up the event.
It would be an injustice to those who are the focus of today's conference if we allowed our concern to peter out as we leave Quaker Meeting House. We make tentative plans for action to capitalise on the commitment of those attending today. At the very least, we should ensure that future events on this and related topics should have a more varied line-up in terms of those presenting and those attending. Greater effort could be made to involve people of other religions, traditions, cultures and backgrounds (on a mildly ironic note, Bahá'ís from city and county have been holding their local convention in an upstairs room and a couple of them join in for the last half hour of the conference, once their own event is done).
Thanks to Ambrose Musiyiwa for these pictures - and for many more photos from the conference which he has posted on Facebook under the guise of Civic Leicester.
It would be an injustice to those who are the focus of today's conference if we allowed our concern to peter out as we leave Quaker Meeting House. We make tentative plans for action to capitalise on the commitment of those attending today. At the very least, we should ensure that future events on this and related topics should have a more varied line-up in terms of those presenting and those attending. Greater effort could be made to involve people of other religions, traditions, cultures and backgrounds (on a mildly ironic note, Bahá'ís from city and county have been holding their local convention in an upstairs room and a couple of them join in for the last half hour of the conference, once their own event is done).
Thanks to Ambrose Musiyiwa for these pictures - and for many more photos from the conference which he has posted on Facebook under the guise of Civic Leicester.
