True impacts of being forced to flee your home

Season 3 episode 8,

Let's get into this...

Summary:

Tapiwa is a paralegal, working in public law and community care, working in the context of the home office and their duty to support asylum seekers.

With more and more people seeking asylum, the pressures on the home office have lead to inefficiency to support them well.

Compared to wider Europe we welcome a lot smaller % of asylum seekers compared to other countries.

There is a lot of stigma that asylum seekers are a leech to public fund or are dangerous.

These individuals are fleeing danger and at the end of the day they need help.

At any one point it could be us. We need a wider global understanding of the danger and need for these people.

Positives: the £9 is little (see 3 things we learnt) but that did increase from £8 because of cost of living. So there is a concern that cost of living will also affect asylum seekers.

The approach in their accommodation is if it’s inconvenient we won’t do it, like the laundry service was shut down over Christmas so they could wash any of their clothes. Tapiwa would love resources to be better equipped to look after these people that have fled danger.

They get no choice in where they are placed after the initial accommodation and are often left with very minimal furniture to start their life.

3 things we learnt:

Asylum seeker is somebody who has come out of fear of persecution and have come to claim asylum.

A refugee is some that has status and asylum has been claimed.

They get £9.10 a week if they are accommodated by the home office- they get room and board and get food. The conditions aren’t great in the “hotels” they stay in. However once they are moved on from the initial accommodation they then get £40 but that is for everything!

Quality of food at the “hotels” isn’t great; it’s different culturally and isn’t healthy for the asylum seekers.

Challenge:

Sit and listen to someone’s story that you wouldn’t have normally taken time to be with.