Volunteering Coordinator Verity McCrum talks about our new project London Adventures and her experiences as a Coordinator

UCLU’s Student Action for Refugees have started STAR London Adventures, a group befriending project with a local community centre. Identifying isolation and lack of confidence as prohibitive problems among the centre’s refugee and migrant service-users, we are helping to organise weekly trips to locations in London. 

As the Project Coordinator for STAR I have received project manager training, worked closely with a range of stakeholders, including local refugees and migrants, and set-up a project with a strong basis in research. This is a fantastic opportunity to lead and develop a project, recruit volunteers, work with a range of professionals and make a real difference to the wellbeing of service-users. 

As a young society, there are also opportunities to start further volunteering opportunities with the help of the STAR head office and UCLU's Volunteering Service Unit.

UCLU Student Action for Refugees Health Conference 2013

 

We are pleased to announce our first ever conference! On 28th April, we will host an interdisciplinary conference on the health of refugees and asylum seekers in order to raise awareness and promote future best practice. 

Keynote speaker: Kristine Harris - Project London, Doctors of the World.

 
The lack of knowledge and understanding the complexity of refugees' and asylum seekers' social, legal and health situation in situations of GP doctors and those providing psychological treatment can have fatal impact on the health and life of refugees and asylum seekers.

This conference brings together health practitioners as speakers who have great experience in working with asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. The aim is to ensure best medical practice of future doctors and raise awareness of asylum seekers and refugees. The inter-disciplinary nature of the conference addresses and reflects on the complexity of this patient group and the need to talk across disciplines in order to promote best practice and best outcomes.

We hope to prepare future doctors for situations in which they will meet this patient group and ensure best practice and raise awareness about refugees and asylum seekers. Additionally, it aims to provide for non-medical students to gain knowledge about the health situation of asylum seekers and refugees.

Tickets: £8 (includes food and drinks during breaks, lunch and wine reception). Tickets are to be sold through the UCLU webshop, details to follow. 

  

Please join our Facebook page event and email us at uclu-safr(at)ucl.ac.uk to let us know you are coming in the meanwhile.

Provisional Schedule:

 
Registration 9-9.30am

Key note speaker
Kristine Harris – Project London, Doctors of the World:
Rights and access to health for asylum-seekers failed asylum-seekers and refugees, the asylum process and factors impacting on the health of these individuals: destitution, legal status, and dispersal policy.

Session 1 –GP-setting:
*speaker not confirmed yet*
This session will focus on identifying vulnerable people and patient communication; working with social services to improve social/living conditions; working with interpreters

Session 2 – GP- setting Women’s health:
*Speaker not confirmed yet*
This session will focus on HIV, pregnancy and FGM
Lunch Wilkins North Cloister

Session 3: Torture (Working with Adults who have survived torture)
*Speaker not confirmed yet*

Session 4: Torture (working with young people who have survived torture)
Speaker: Mozhdeh Ghasemiyani from Freedom from Torture.
This session will focus on working with young adults in transition and the effect of torture and separation on development.

Session 5: Trauma – working with refugee families and children
*Speaker soon to be announced*

Session 6: Immigration Detention
*Speaker soon to be announced*
This session will focus on health issues and access to health services in immigration detention.

Session 7: Working in developing countries: the case of Burma
Speaker: Dr. Oo, GP and founder of Better Burmese Healthcare
This session will focus on health issues and access to health in Burma and the work of Better Burmese Healthcare in Burma.

Drinks Reception Wilkins North Cloister

New report from Refugee Council – ‘A lot to learn: refugees, asylum seekers and post-16 learning’

Find the whole report at the Refugee Council's website

‘A lack of access to appropriate and sufficient funding and financial support proved to be a significant barrier for several of the refugees and asylum seekers interviewed.’

This newly published report by the Refugee Council discusses the experiences of post-16 learning from the perspective of refugees and asylum seekers, but also a range of learning providers in England. The research was motivated by the complexity of the system, ever-changing rules and lack of awareness of issues concerning refugees and asylum seekers, in addition to the clear role played by education in integration and wellbeing.

The Detention Market

Yarl's Wood Detention Centre, Bedfordshire (photograph: Graham Turner) 

Detention. Fast becoming a prominent part of the narratives of those seeking sanctuary in the UK, detention is no longer treated as a last resort in the asylum and immigration system. Thanks to the Detained Fast Track (DFT) system, asylum seekers whose cases are considered to be easy to answer (either positive or negative) are detained whilst waiting for the final response from the Home Office on their status. This system has not only massively increased the numbers of asylum seekers who are forced to enter these secure facilities, but has contributed to the progressive criminalisation of those who seek sanctuary in the UK.

According to a report published in The Lancet, a government document admitted that one quarter of all asylum seekers who were detained were done so without sufficient evidence. In the first quarter of 2012, 3500 people were being held in detention centres across the country. According to the figures, this would mean that over 800 detainees were incarcerated unfairly, and that's only according to the government's own criteria.

The detention system is a profitable market. Private companies are fast becoming the primary supplier of facilities and staff, with multi-national companies like Serco, G4S and the Geo Group providing detention centres across the country. If one takes a cautionary look towards the United States, where the growth of private detention centres and prisons has surprisingly been matched by a growth in the detained population, the future of the UK 'detention market' is hardly difficult to predict.

When private companies expand their businesses, they talk about emerging markets and new opportunities; they speculate a return on their initial investment. In the case of detention, these private companies have a vested interest in the increasing securitisation of the UK asylum system. Every additional detainee admitted to a detention centre clocks up figures used to justify the construction of a new centre; every unfairly detained asylum seeker sustains the profits of the private company. This is the reality of what G4S have determined as the 'asylum market.' 

The sad thing is that reports on the poor standards of healthcare, mental health support, and general care in detention centres have continually fallen on deaf ears. Unfortunately, cases like Muhammad's are still allowed to happen:

Abdul Khan pressed the emergency button again. It was after 6 am and his roommate Muhammad Shukat was groaning in agony, clenching his chest, and sweating profusely—he had collapsed for the second time that morning. Nursing staff came in, unlocked the door to the small window-less room, picked Shukat up, put him back in his bed, took his temperature, administered medication, and left the room. After three separate similar visits by nursing staff and ten different frantic calls of the emergency button by 19-year-old immigration detainee Khan, an ambulance was called at about 7·20 am—nearly 2 hours after Khan's initial call for help. Paramedics attempted to resuscitate Shukat but the 47-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival to hospital. His body was flown from the UK back to his family in Pakistan. This was Kahn's account of a tragic morning at Colnbrook immigration detention centre, Middlesex, UK, at an inquest in 2012.

Serco, the managers of Colnbrook detention centre, and the Home Office have declared that all recommendations from the inquest have been implemented. However, organisations like Medical Justice and Freedom from Torture maintain that current standards in immigration detention centres are far from satisfactory.

The proliferation of detention in the asylum system and an obsession on the incarceration of 'overstayers' and 'refused' asylum seekers is part of a wider political discourse. A focus on detention allows the government to posture as being 'tough' on illegal immigration, and appeases the entrenched Tory right that haunts the back-benches of Westminister. Yet a question of rights remains. As three cases of unlawful detention of asylum seekers with mental health issues were brought to the High Court in the past year, detained fast track is no longer looking like such an 'easy' option for government to take. Imprisonment without a crime; that just doesn't sound right, does it?  

"You Just Hope for a Better Future"

Even after a quiet month away for Christmas, UCLU Student Action for Refugee's campaign for equal access to higher education for those seeking protection has managed to maintain momentum. Our event on Tuesday 15th January saw inspirational presentations from members of the Refugee Support Network, STAR National and the Council for the Assistance of Refugee Academics reaffirm why the question of equal access matters for students at UCL and in universities across the country.

Broadly speaking, why should ensuring that those seeking protection have equal access to education matter? For Latefa Guemar, our speaker from CARA, it is a question of both a right to education and a freedom of academic thought. Herself escaping persecution in Algeria, Latefa highlighted the need for the protection of academics, researchers and students who may be at risk in their home countries. Our universities, she believes (as do we!), are only set to benefit from the increased diversity in teaching, thought and information that can be found in refugee academics and students. But what about young asylum seekers and those with discretionary leave to remain who hope to study at UK institutions?

Now, if you've been following our campaign over the last few months, you'll already be aware of some of the key issues that our speakers flagged up in terms of access to higher education for those seeking protection. But perhaps Emily Bowerman, from the Refugee Support Network, put it most clearly on Tuesday. She highlighted that asylum seekers and those with discretionary leave to remain face a myriad of barriers when attempting to access higher education as students, far beyond the economic question of international fees and financing. Due to poor advice (or no advice at all), many young people seeking protection simply do not know that their immigration status will prejudice their access to higher education in the UK. And even with fateful irony, much of the applicant's paperwork that is demanded by UCAS and university administration is held by the Home Office.

Take the case of Hamidullah, who was kind enough to tell his story to our audience on Tuesday. Fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, he arrived in the UK as a young teenager and sought asylum. He dedicated his life to education; learning English from scratch, enrolling at college and securing the good grades he needed to be given a place at his chosen university. But despite receiving an offer from a University, he quickly realised that because of his unsettled immigration status, he would be unable to join his friends as they moved on to higher education. Only granted Discretionary Leave to Remain by the UK Home Office (a limited right to remain in the UK normally lasting for 2 - 3 years, upon which the individual's case is reviewed), Hamidullah had no access to student loans and was faced with international fees. Essentially, his access to higher education was not based on merit.

This, in the words of Emily of STAR National, is particularly problematic for young asylum seekers and those with discretionary leave to remain who have studied as teenagers in the UK, but are left to watch their friends progress into higher education as they are left behind. The current situation disables the transformative potential of education for those seeking protection and safety in the UK.

We, at UCLU Student Action for Refugees, believe that cases like Hamidullah's are unjust. Education is a right, and not a privilege; an indecision on the behalf of the Home Office shouldn't be able to further disrupt the lives of those seeking protection by denying their equal access to higher education.

We're not the Home Office, but we are students and we can change the way that our University treats those seeking protection. We're asking for UCL's Provost to reclassify asylum seekers and those with discretionary leave to remain as home students, and to open up bursaries and scholarships to these students also. We believe that by removing the barriers to higher education for those seeking protection in the UK within our own University, we can begin to grant real equal access to education for all. If you want to sign our petition, you can do so here, or if you're interested in supporting our campaign generally, give us an email and get involved!

Hamidullah, when asked what his plans and aspirations were for the next few years, simply stated that "you just hope for a better future." We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Gamu’s Story - the right to learn

Gamu arrived in the UK from Zimbabwe in 2000. After many years, during which she was determined to keep her dreams alive through education, she was finally granted refugee status in 2010. Read about Gamu’s story.

Arrival

I arrived from Zimbabwe in July 2000 with my twin sister and, like many people, my parents had thought it wise for us to have some time away from the threats to our family that were becoming a daily occurrence. My father had run as an MP before independence in 1980, and ran in opposition to the ruling party in 1999-2000.
We were advised by those who had been here before not to apply for asylum on arrival. My only guess now is they did not understand themselves what seeking asylum was all about. But at 17 and in a foreign land, you can only trust what you are being told by the adults around you.
Once we knew that we might need to stay a lot longer than anticipated, we began studying for our A-levels and subsequently made applications for university, like our friends.
I never imagined that we would have so many problems. The person we had entrusted to help us with our stay here had left the country without letting us know what we had to do.
We then sought advice from a lawyer who told us we should have applied for asylum when we arrived. So in 2003 we did, but had I known we would now be stuck in this situation I would have been more careful to dream about the future.

University

I was offered a place to study Psychology at three universities in London and another near Manchester. My friends went off to study and have since begun work as teachers, doctors and chemical engineers. I could not help but feel less of a person because my story was that I was a failed asylum seeker whom the press had chastised and vilified.
I felt powerless because for years I had enough qualifications to go into higher education but, because I was not allowed to work, I could not afford to pay for my education. Asking my family to help me with costs of almost £10,000 for my tuition alone was not an option.
I managed to study modular courses with the Open University and I am now on my last two modules of a BSc in Social Sciences and Psychology. It has taken me a very long time but it has been the best remedy to save me from insanity or sitting on my brain whilst I “waited” for the unknown.

‘Speaking out for the voiceless’

I was finally granted refugee status in early 2010 but I have spent many years trying to achieve what others had the opportunity to do in three years.
I have met so many people who are misinformed about the issues faced by refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. Many speak about how refugees and asylum seekers do not want to work, or that they live in mansions.
Some say they should go back to where they came from, yet the reason they fled was a fear for their lives, or because they thought they would be able to get humanitarian protection in another country.
To me, the Equal Access Campaign is a way to speak out for the voiceless thousands who have made asylum applications and are still in limbo with no access to education.
I know for a fact that education is power. It is also a basic human right.
I believe that we can empower people if they are given the chance to educate themselves and permission to work so they can sustain themselves and have a fighting chance of raising money for their education.
I was fortunate enough to get help from friends and family to not only have a roof over my head, but to gain a qualification to help me keep some sort of dream alive.
I now hope to work more with refugee and asylum seeking communities as I know how damaging uncertainty can be to your mental health.

STAR-National are campaigning to ensure that asylum seekers have Equal Access to higher education across the country. To find out more about the campaign, visit the STAR National website: http://www.star-network.org.uk/index.php/campaigns/equal_access

Online Petition

Our campaign for EQUAL ACCESS is underway! Please sign the online petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ucl_equal_access/

and share with everyone you know at UCL.