Helping Local Asylum Seekers Move Forward
From "THINC Fund Vote: Large Projects (£25,000-£50,000)"
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Total Amount Requested: £40,000
We want to be able to continue our work with refugees and asylum seekers in Peckham. But for the first time in our 25 year history we are facing the possibility that we may have to limit the service we provide to some of the borough’s most vulnerable. The tone of the debate around asylum is getting harsher, but the needs of asylum seekers don’t go away.
· Asylum seekers are given just £7 per day to cover food, travel and communications
· They’re not allowed to work,
· They’re often left waiting years for a decision on their application.
Life on £7 a day in London would be hard for anyone. For someone fleeing a traumatic past, who has left friends and family behind, who may even still be a child, it’s really tough. Especially in an increasingly hostile atmosphere. Mental health is the first thing to suffer.
So the 200 people who come to us every week get access to:
· a hot meal, prepared on site.
· advice: on housing (large numbers of our clients are homeless), education, legal issues, health, etc. We deliver 180 of these advice sessions every month.
· mental health support. We offer a range of activities to combat the boredom, depression and loneliness that our clients are at risk of. We run arts and crafts sessions, a garden and an allotment, a woman’s group, a conversation group, story-telling sessions, trips to museums or the seaside, a creche (essential for peace of mind!) and more.
We have the equivalent of only 5 full-time staff, so we couldn’t get anywhere without our team of over 90 volunteers, many of them ex-clients. They greet people at the door, sort food donations, help out in the creche, give advice, supervise the allotment, cook food, teach English, keep the fundraising operation going... or are just available for a chat.
But some things do need paying for. Many big funders are shrinking or closing down altogether. Others are very restrictive in what they want to fund. The THINC project represents a rare chance to pay for the unglamorous things we need to keep going: phone bills, food, rent.
It's hard at the end of a day to sit with a family with nowhere to go that night. Or with an unaccompanied minor who has a world of unanswerable questions about what happens next. But it’s also a great joy when a school place is sorted, or a child’s bed for a bare flat found, or when a client we’ve been supporting for years finally gets their refugee status, or a longed-for job.
We aim to support asylum seekers (failed and aspiring) and refugees in their path towards being the citizens they want to be: happy, active, healthy, productive. Help us show them that they do have friends in the borough.
“If not for SDCAS, I don’t know if I would be alive. That’s why I call it home” [Client A]
Please do watch our video and vote for us.