1. Enabling self-help: getting together with others in a similar situation, where there is mutual understanding based on shared experiences, and shared aspirations for the future.
2. Support with a practical focus that addresses isolation, meets our basic needs, engages with the asylum system and mainstream provision.
3. Support in organizing ourselves by addressing organizational issues, learning through the process, for everybody’s benefits.

1. Practicalities: understanding of UK systems, lack of settled communities and difficulties resourcing our organizations.
2. Attitudes within our (refugee and asylum seekers) communities: limiting self beliefs, lack of trust and misconceptions within community, and hesitancy about becoming involved. 
3. Attitudes of host communities about refugee and asylum seekers communities: discrimination against communities, discrimination within and between communities, assumptions. 
4. Attitudes of host communities about refugee community organisations: barriers faced by refugee community organisations, competition between organisations.
5. Attitudes of mainstream organizations including assumptions, fear of empowerment leadership and self- organizing, barriers to formalizing our organizations, organizational cultures.

A practical focus engaging with the asylum and resettlement systems as well as mainstream provision, meeting specific needs and enabling collective voice.

1. Experiences as an asylum seeker or refugee, personally and what I’ve witnessed: isolation, language and personal experience.
2. It’s who I am: personally, my family and linked with why I became an asylum seeker or refugee.

1. There are personal costs
2. Satisfaction
3. Personal development and learning

1.1 Enabling self-help: 

getting together with others in a similar situation 

• When we have meetings everybody helps, wants to bring something, be part of it. Collective social activity, feeling of contributing, want to belong to the group, the place. We have all been through the same sort of things. 

• That’s why I started the group because I know how they feel when they cannot find help. Learned that drop ins existed after about 8 months, I just saw it advertised in the library. That’s where it started I was really isolated when I first came.   
• Only at our drop in can people speak up in their own language. Even if people don’t need any help they come to meet people, make new friends, be out of isolation.

mutual understanding based on shared experiences 

• When seeking sanctuary in a new country where you don’t know anybody; don’t know about the does and don’ts. You are restrained by the rules of the new country. 

• … [M]ost come from a background where disability is not celebrated.… They fear approaching the local authority for help, so you have to work with them a step at a time. It’s a challenge because of stigma, language, their beliefs. 

• You need to understand the background. So I focus on getting people to switch their thinking, shed their negative thinking from background beliefs or bad experiences.
• I’m hoping to set up a womens group… It’s about opening their minds to dealing with domestic abuse, having healthy relationships, helping kids… It’s about helping people move on, not always staying with the grief.

shared aspirations for the future

• We are just starting. It is about integration. If I live in this country and am a British passport holder, I have to feel I am British… we all want to be one and the same; one expression of nation.

• So need to have ideas that are about empowerment, that recognise assets. Independent living means encouraging people who have ideas to do what they want to do.

• This is my country now, I’m happy to know more about it. I’m home. I’m not different from other people. I am in my presentation but I’m home I want to know the area.

1.2 Support with a practical focus: 

• addresses isolation

• I saw how hard it was for him [my father]. He waited a week or two to see his friend to ask him for help to make a phone call. 

• Some people feel isolated, some even feel unwelcome. To make any changes we need to remove this, bring people together with their own community and with their own people at first… 

meets our basic needs 

• I was lost, had no connections, abandoned. I didn’t speak English. I was amongst the first Africans dispersed to the North East… There was a single mother with 3 children who didn’t know how to turn the heating on. For three days, they were wearing 6 layers of clothes, until I went to the accommodation provider and said “She doesn’t know how to turn on the heating”. 

• During lock down moved the services online, using zoom, chat, phone. In an emergency will meet people outside for 1-2-1. Delivery of food parcels, distribution of clothes, furniture and toiletries… We had specific meeting over zoom about vaccine; we got a female doctor to come and speak. 

engages with broader systems

• We started in the community centre with learning English, doing translation, filling in forms, making phone calls.

• People who are waiting longer for case… The waiting affects people’s mental health… Just want an update. Emailing direct [to Home Office] rather than waiting for solicitors who just tell you to wait. It is also about doing something empowering… 

• We get to understand how systems in the UK work. This helps with integration. 

• It may be the GP not letting you register, or it may be the individual not understanding: the individual not understanding the situation of the organisation. 

• NHS do provide interpreting service, but the issue is how does someone pick up the phone and tell them that they need an interpreter? 

• I tell people that they should go to the council rather than me, but they respond that they get no help… 
• During last two and a half years I have called fire brigade twice (an asylum seekers house was on fire and they didn’t know how to call them); police only 4 or 5 time; ambulance lost count of how many times. 

1.3 Support in organizing ourselves:

addressing organizational issues

• Many members are refugees and asylum seekers so their income is next to nothing. At the start, the more established individuals financed our organisation from own pockets.

• Been told you could apply to trusts and foundations, but imagine coming across a word you had never heard of in your life … got a cheque made out to [regional community organisation] but no bank account…

• Approached key individuals in [local] church as were looking for venue to meet on regular basis. They gave it to us for no cost; wonderful because it meant we could get on with organising the activities without needing to look for funding. We were empowered by non-monetary local support. They didn’t want us to come to their church services or for us to include their agenda in our agenda. They literally gave us keys to the building.

learning through the process

• Although I was good at saying what was needed it took me a time to understand about community groups…. It took me a year to understand… Many, many questions. If we meet as a group of 10 and we have issues that we put on a piece of paper, then what do we do? 

• When we created the organisation we gained new skills… Knowing the system supports integration. We come from different backgrounds, different ways of doing things. Now in UK, because we want to fit in with the ways of the British, we have to learn these, rather than stay with our own ways of doing things.

for everybody’s benefits 

• A formal way of addressing issues in our community…saying we are here to listen to your needs and signpost you to the right services. A clear platform where people can hear their issues and have a clear way to address them. Also a way for other organisations to communicate with our community via us. They were struggling with this because there was no other platform. So ensuring the 2 way communication was a little bit smoother…

• Whatever change you want to bring about you cannot do it as a single person. It has to be in a group to create an impact… Vertical working includes with the police, CPS and other to give them some idea about how they can go about working with ethnic minority group. There are people in these institutions who are very good, willing to go extra mile, ensure trust. We are just starting this – being practical and engaging. 

1.Practicalities: 

understanding of UK systems 

• If I had better language think it would have been more help. Also a lack of information; systems in the UK for example education, health. Whenever somebody asks me something I have to make a few phone calls, look on the internet and then get back to them. It is good as I know more but it takes a lot of time to make sure it is correct.
• Know of how to act within the law and regulations.

lack of settled communities 

• We rely on volunteers. This has real strengths but you cannot sustain people. This makes for a fluidity as people move along, so some knowledge gets lost.

• As a community mobiliser, [the town] is a small place. If in a bigger city would have more members, volunteers, ideas… Refugees cannot find jobs here… 

• [Our] community in the North East was very small; only recently have number started to grow.

difficulties resourcing our organizations

• Premises and accommodation, contact points. This is also related to finance, which is very important.

• Getting across to the funder what you need … Funding applications are time consuming.

2. Attitudes within our (refugee and asylum seeking) communities: 

limiting self beliefs 

• Root of the problem is people’s strong beliefs especially if this includes not being accepted. 

• Some of the people you want to help are reluctant, perhaps some are suspicious because of their own bad experience in journey to UK; often been through a great deal of traumatic experience.

• My claim is the one thing refugee and asylum seeking communities can do is make positive changes in their lives. Not that there isn’t racism; there is but fighting is not the solution. Also if we just cry it will not solve anything – if you have a problem, you have to shift your thinking to the positive side and think about the solution. Then everything will change…

lack of trust and misconceptions within community

• … Firstly you have to change yourself. This includes religious and cultural views on the role of women. Also an intergenerational aspect to this. 

• Hindered by personal obligations within the family… There was a verbal clash between myself and some people in the community and the kids started to fear that what they had been through in [another country] would be repeated here…. They did not believe we were volunteering, thought we were working for some people, organisation. 

• They accuse me of westernising. Tension between holding your own identity and changing how you think. It’s not about identity. You have thoughts, beliefs, experiences on top of these cultural definitions.

hesitancy about becoming involved 

• They (RAS themselves) have responsibility to be proactive in doing things for themselves. … I am responsible for my own development…  We have responsibility as a community rather than just wingeing: ‘what are you doing about….’

• Lack of organisation within the community and people willing to volunteer.

3. Attitudes of host communities about RAS communities: 

discrimination against communities 

• Refugee communities are not homogeneous [‘all alike’].

• Issue about discrimination from host community. We have to change those ideas and thoughts by what we do. All of ‘us´ are seen as the same whether Muslim Christian, Arab, African.

• [We] can probably handle being called names on the street, the first generation are quite resilient. Problem comes when you access services, for example mental health. There’s a stigma and issues about language.

discrimination within and between communities 

• Attitudes that hinder empowerment don’t come from only some mainstream communities but from other black and minoritised communities who believe that refugees are inferior to them. Their attitudes sometimes can be worse than the wider community and only seek unity with the RAS community when they themselves have faced discrimination.

• It’s an attitude. People look at me. Eastern Europeans who are white don’t see themselves as refugees any more. Its human, but it needs to be challenged… its not acceptable.   

• I was privileged working as a doctor here but never forgot my roots.  I belong to an ethnic minority group in this country. I’m aware of the restrictions and limitations.

assumptions 

• The view that you cannot integrate and hold your own culture is the problem here. It understates the value of culture and living with different perspectives. Generally it is fear of the unknown… people fear this because do not know what lies ahead, fear of change. This assumes culture is a fixed entity, and there’s only one way of doing things.

• Everybody who has come has got ideas of going back at some point. So if someone is completely cut off from their culture, their language it will be a problem for them in the future. 

• Its about mutual understanding; about the value of refugees and asylum seekers. We are not here just to be helped, also here to contribute.

4. Attitudes of host communities about refugee community organisations:

barriers faced by refugee community organisations 

• Thought I needed permission from the government. I didn’t want to get into trouble. In [country of birth] you need permission so I went to the Council. They didn’t want me to organize a group, they brought out a piece of paper, saying there was an organization already. I had already written the idea on a piece of paper…It started from there.

• When agency approach us and say ‘can you get your members together we want to give them information’, there may be a cost involved, might be other issues for example if you cannot provide childcare, people may not want to hear what you want to say. 

• Some organizations are blocking integration.  We are not seen as part of the community.

• If you use services of an organisation, they don’t like to see you as an organisation in same way as them.

competition between organisations

• There were… some leaders in the local residents association who were not quite sure about our agenda… There was some hostility, resentment. They had a lot of clout with the council. We had to justify ourselves on several occasions.

• Another organisation moved to [town]. The centre we used to use was offered to them by the council and we were made homeless… We were pushed to the wall when our centre was taken away and organisation did not allow us to hire a room… We found a new venue, a church down the road. Many people coming to us but we did not have all the contact details.  

5. Attitudes of mainstream organizations

assumptions

• Turning ideas into action needs those that can support the ways of being open minded, not assuming that they already know how to do everything… The ‘give, give’ model sustains jobs for other people but it perpetuates dependency. What are the assumptions behind this? 
  • I can do it better
  • The community has no assets, we have to help them. It is a community of need
  • Everybody is at the same level of need. Some people are traumatised but some people are more resilient…

fear of empowerment, leadership and self-organizing

• To give the impression that we are doing everything and you dont need to do anything is simply wrong. The VCS can do many things but some things they cannot do… 

• When (I) went to an organisation whose role it was to help organizations we were asked ‘why do you need to set up a group? just volunteer for another organisation.’ I was discouraged but I stood strong… 

• It’s about linked and distinctive identities and about knowledge. The question about how you build that. You need to link with community leaders, but it’s not left to the community leaders.

• We have some good relationships with council, but a couple of people tried their best to close us down as an organisation by telling us there were other groups for ‘you people’: a horrid phrase. 

• ‘Why are you wanting to do this? we are already doing this’. Have seen churches who prevent individuals who are trying to do something in their local community. This is an example of the view that there’s only one right way of doing things – and its ours.   

• Have been told not to engage with certain organisations; if they contact you don’t respond, although get emails about working in partnership. I’m constantly being told what to do and what not to do, when I’m quite capable of making our own choice. I feel quite intimidated… 

• Local authority does not have same issue about dependency [as some voluntary organizations]. They want everybody to go away because they are cutting costs.

barriers to formalizing our organizations

• Had a real struggle to become a registered charity… This was prejudice, not ignorance. 

organizational cultures 

• There is a certain style in which these bids are presented … The value of your idea is judged on the paper… So it is not the language issue, but it is part of the culture…. the funding has to have ‘Mr John Smith’ underneath… It’s the experience of RAS but you have to go to those meetings with someone who looks more credible in their eyes.

• Bureaucracy: a problem for everyone but more so for RCOs, because the amount of hoops they have to jump… 

• It is not always clear, but it is a racist culture. I would say to fellow RCOs accept that. You have to accept that it is and create a system where you can find your way out of that. You can see this in hostile environment, in covid impacts, in boards of directors of many funders, work forces of LAs. You have to find a way through this.

A practical focus 

• We started in the community centre with learning English, doing translation, filling in forms, making phone calls – as well as social events. 

• We were signposted to classes, but we were meeting other people as friends there. So we needed a drop in session…for anybody who wants to talk, to share anything; food, a story, it can be anything. 

• During lock down moved the services online, using zoom, chat, phone. In an emergency will meet people outside for 1-2-1. Delivery of food parcels, distribution of clothes, furniture and toiletries. Help enroll people for college… and access student finance. We had specific meeting over zoom about vaccine; we got a female Dr to come and speak. 

• … raise their awareness of their abilities. See that they have resources and they can build themselves and then move on.  

• … many people came – they needed not just the clothing; brought letters, refusal letters; needed help registering with a GP, finding a solicitor. Twenty seven or twenty eight people needing help; … So if we stop what happens to these people? We decided could not stop…

engaging with the asylum and resettlement systems 

• People who are waiting longer for case… The waiting affects people’s mental health… Just want an update. Emailing direct [to Home Office] rather than waiting for solicitors who just tell you to wait. It is also about doing something empowering… 

• As a registered charity we are very clearly not a political group, but we do have a legal strand of activity. We involve learning together and challenging things. For example asylum seekers should be allowed to work; free school meals should not be denied… I was an asylum seeker… Although it is not meant to, it does affect you if you do things politically. 

• Individual had a heart attack, refused leave to remain, hospital sent him a bill for several thousand pounds. They went to a solicitor asking to challenge hospital and ask the Home Office to pay the fee. Solicitor said they could not help. They came to us. We could not give advice, because we are not officially trained; but we could support. [RRF] forwarded an email saying there was a new law if someone is on Section 21 support, they are eligible for free medical treatment. I forwarded that to the solicitor who said they did not know. They should have.

engaging with the mainstream provision 

• If people can understand how to use the system then they can use it. If not then the doors are closed to them. 

• Struggle is not knowing much about the British system. Local people and organizations support refugees but it’s not easy. They don’t know much about us and we don’t know much about the systems. It’s a two way process. 

• We get to understand how systems in the UK work. This helps with integration. You cannot complain that you are not getting the support from this or that organisation if you do not meet their criteria.

• In thinking about our issues we have to think about the issues of other communities, including the host communities. That is integration. Not about loosing identity into another one. It’s about cohesion, living together harmoniously with your differences. This requires changes in UK systems as well as communities.

• When we created the organisation we gained new skills… Knowing the system supports integration. We come from different backgrounds, different ways of doing things. Now in UK, because we want to fit in with the ways of the British, we have to learn these, rather than stay with our own ways of doing things.   

• If you have a bad experience you see it as the norm; that’s how it impacts. 

• They don’t trust information that is available, they need someone to facilitate it.

• The support worker is the key for most of the issues. I don’t know if the form filing I do is part of their job.

• It may be the GP not letting you register, or it may be the individual not understanding: the individual not understanding the situation of the organisation. 

• NHS do provide interpreting service, but the issue is how does someone pick up the phone and tell them that they need an interpreter?

• Sometimes they have the language but do not understand the processes.

• I tell people that they should go to the council rather than me, but they respond that they get no help. There was a survey amongst the families about the service from the council… I was completing most of the forms. People were not saying what they thought about the service. They thought that they would get into trouble. 

• Making mainstream services better: for example the police being better informed is helping my own community. 

• Last week someone needed a signature for her daughter’s passport. She could not find anybody, but because we knew her from before we were able to sign it for her.

meeting specific needs 

• Sometimes men will stop them (women) doing things under the name of religion… One person has said, ‘This is my country now, I’m happy to know more about it. I’m home. I’m not different from other people. I am in my presentation but I’m home. I want to know the area’.

• I used to walk from [town] to [town] just crying. I was angry, depressed. It’s quite hard, especially when you’re with kids. I only had £35…Doing exercise is really good for me. It’s why I want to do it with the group. In our culture we don’t do that. If you are going to the gym you are a bad woman, you are looking for somebody.

• There was a gap in the community, ethnic minorities didn’t have a group they could turn to for support. Other groups didn’t understand them because of their diverse needs. [RAS parents of children with learning disabilities]

• We had driving lessons. We had a man who could speak Farsi and English, taught the driving theory. Found an organisation that helps people get driving test… This has allowed people to apply for jobs as taxi drivers and delivery drivers. 

• Council had a specific post but it was around [resettled] refugees. They may need help with integration. But asylum seekers also need help if different. 

• As soon as you have Leave To Remain, you are thrown in to a system you don’t know…

enabling collective voice 

• Not aware of our rights, shy away from exercising our own rights because we feel intruders into the system. Feeling you’re not meant to access services… what is and is not our rights. 

• Drawing on knowledge of managing groups and leadership skills from past experiences.

• A formal way of addressing issues in our community…saying ‘we are here to listen to your needs’ and signpost you to the right services. A clear platform where people can hear their issues and have a clear way to address them. Also a way for other organisations to communicate with our community via us. They were struggling with this because there was no other platform. So ensuring the two way communication was a little bit smoother…

1.Experiences as an asylum seeker or refugee, personally and what I’ve witnessed 

• If you don’t do anything you feel like you are a number waiting for something to happen to you. This is dealing with being in the system. I’m a case number on someone’s desk. 

• isolation, language 

• I saw members of community struggling with social isolation, interaction, confidence.

• To make any changes we need to remove this [people feeling isolated, unwelcome], bring people together with their own community and with their own people at first and then extend that to the host community. This is the source of my motivation.

• When forced to leave and come here it was really difficult for him [my father] to do simple things like making a phone call to make an appointment… he waited a week or 2 to see his friend to ask him for help…

personal experience

• What I have been through in my life is the motivation. People try to help refugees without understanding their background… Trying to help without understanding will not benefit them over a sustained period. You are in pain… I can help because I have already been through all of that.

2.It’s who I am personally

• My awareness of justice and people’s rights… I can see the inequalities in a lot of ways and it’s against my conscience.

• I was a community activist in my country. It’s always been part of my life to work to help others. Whilst waiting for decision from Home Office I had a lot of time, but it continued after the decision.

• I feel it’s part of my DNA. A moral duty to do something to help someone who is struggling. Also as a Christian about being a good Samaritan. Some of the injustices we see are also political.

• It’s about finding a solution to a crisis and an emotional attachment to people in need. 

• I was born to be an activist, but I was using skills in the wrong way… Not an activist in [country of birth]…. Coming to this country and seeing people in difficulties lead to me being an activist.

my family 

• It’s natural, it’s who I am. My sister, both my aunt and mother look after orphans. It’s in the family…

linked with why I became an asylum seeker or refugee

• I had to leave home because I was an activist student and wouldn’t shut up…

• I will not stand by and let evil/bad actions flourish. This is what got me into trouble in my own country. Worried that this talking out would affect my claim. The Home Office would say “we don’t want troublemakers like you here”.

there are personal costs

• Also gives me some extra trauma, maybe perhaps affecting my family.

• Misery! When you are an activist you take on more that your share of things… I’m volunteering 24 hours a day.

Satisfaction

• Satisfaction. I feel great that I’ve done something useful to help… I’m not isolated at home. Many people in the community have mental health issues, including as a result of isolation. 

• Satisfaction in helping others, bringing a positive change to your community.

• Made me feel good; giving back to community that is supporting you.

• To be honest I love it, helping people. I just do what I can for them.

• The honour of being an actor of development at grassroots level.

Personal development and learning

• It makes me understand how I am strong and that I have a lot to give and a good potential for future life to build a lot of things in my life. There is hope to change.

• I’ve learned a lot… I’ve learned to be in the middle about assumptions and prejudices of local residents and refugee and asylum seekers.

• I know more when I became a refugee; that influences my views, that influences my friends and networks, that influences my way of thinking and life. It shapes your perspective on life and the world. Being an activist isn’t an exercise you would do and forget about it. It’s about setting up your life, the way you think, what lense do you see the world with.

• More patient now: when you hear of other peoples’ problems it makes you more patient. 

• Being an activist, being a spokesperson, having a voice has helped my life and those around me. When we come together, we will always prevail.

13 research participants from our membership were selected on a range of criteria. These were: gender, geographical location in North East, county of origin, length of involvement, aims of organisation/ type of support provided, degree of RCO formalization. One person, recovering from Covid, declined to participate. The project’s Research Steering Group consisted of five people who were part of the Forums’ governance and management. Two people were both part of the steering group and participated in the research. One of those wishes to remain anonymous. Our thanks to them all. 

• Bini Araia
• Elizabeth Sunduzwayo
• Gaby Kitoko
• Herbert Dirahu
• Maya George
• Mo Ali Abdullah
• Dr Mohamed Nasreldin
• Ramatoulie Saidykhan
• Riada Kullani
• Sara Fatima
• Sarah 
• Shams Moussa
• Suraiya Riyaz  
• The late Dr Tebabu Wubetu
• and Georgina Fletcher