I have volunteered in a Night Shelter for destitute asylum seekers and refugees for five years now. Asylum seekers and refugees often come from countries and situations where their experiences include intense violence, torture, dispossession and, at the least, extremes of fear, where they are escaping from levels of intimidation and lack of personal freedom …
Continue reading “Mad and Saintly: Mental Health and Destitution”
A day in someone else’s life: 07.30: rise, dress, breakfast, settle arguing children
Everywhere – if I go downtown – I am referred to as ‘brother’. I am tempted to use it in response – if you call me brother I’ll call you the same.
I was speaking with a group of asylum seekers and refugees this evening. I had brought along a tin of corned beef but the little thing you use to twist/turn the top off was missing. An Iranian man, Ali, used a knife to cut the top open. All the while I was thinking how difficult …
For the past few months I’ve been accompanying a young man, originally from Zimbabwe, to the Borders Agency office in Vulcan House, near the river Don in Sheffield. It is an area that was redeveloped over the past ten years with a host of residential flats and offices being built with river frontage. It has …
