Refugee Group

Working With Refugees

Birmingham Conference October 2007 (click on picture for link)

Christians Aware Hospitality Group, c/o Revd. William Taylor,
St. Peter's Vicarage, Mount Park Road, London W5 2RU (0208 997 1620).

Who is a Refugee?

What We Can Do

1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees defines a refugee as someone who:

"... owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being resident outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it."

Article 14(1) of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

"Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution."

In 1992,the Home Office dealt with 24,605 applications by asylum-seekers. This is less than 5 for every 10,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom.

Many people are still awaiting a decision on their application. Refugees find themselves living mainly in large cities and towns; in country areas and smaller towns their numbers are likely to be quite low.

There are displaced people, too. People may be internally displaced; they have left their homes in fear, but have not crossed an international border.

1. Pray for refugees throughout the world; there are many forgotten conflicts no longer in the headlines.

2. Pray for refugees already living in the United Kingdom.

3. Pray for those making decisions which affect the lives of refugees.

4. Pray that peoples' hearts will be softened and opened to understanding refugees' situations.

5. In your area, find out where the refugees are, get to know them and befriend them.

6. Listen to refugees telling their stories.

7. Help refugees with their practical and emotional needs.

8. Give prolonged support to those who do not have the right to family re-union and who are therefore often the most isolated,

9. Support local refugee projects by getting involved with financial and practical support.

Do Not Call Me Stranger

DO NOT CALL ME "STRANGER" because in a mother's love we all receive the same light; in their songs, their kisses, close to their breast, they all dream about us being equal.

DO NOT CALL ME "STRANGER" Do not think of where I came from. Better to think of our common destiny, and to look at where time is leading us.

DO NOT CALL ME "STRANGER" because your bread and your fire assuage my hunger and my cold, and because your roof shelters me.

DO NOT CALL ME "STRANGER"! Your wheat is like mine and your hand like my own! And hunger, never overcome, wanders about everywhere constantly changing its victims.

And you call me "stranger" because your way drew me and because I was born in another country; because I have known other seas and have sailed from other ports. And for all that, the handkerchiefs that wave to tell us goodbye are all the same, and the same also the retinas moistened by the tears of those we leave behind. The same are the prayers and the love of those who dream of our return.

DO NOT CALL ME "STRANGER"! We all cry with the same voice and share the same fatigue which we carry about since the beginning of time when frontiers had not been invented, well before the arrival of those who divide and kill, of those who sell our dreams and would, one day, invent the word "stranger".

DO NOT CALL ME "STRANGER"! It is a sad word, a cold world, evocative of exile. Do not call me "stranger"! Watch your son run with mine, hand in hand, until the end of the road.

DO NOT CALL ME "STRANGER" because they understand nothing about language, about frontiers, about flags. See them go up to the heavens: a single dove carries them united in a single flight.

DO NOT CALL ME "STRANGER"! Look at me straight in the eye, beyond hatred, egotism and fear and you will see….. I cannot be a stranger.

Rafael Amor, Zaire.

You are the caller

You are the caller
You are the poor
You are the stranger at my door

You are the wanderer
The unfed
You are the homeless
with no bed

You are the man
Driven insane
You are the child
Crying in pain

You are the other who comes to me
If I open to another you're born in me.

David Adam

"Do Not Call Me A Stranger" and "You are the Caller" are reproduced from "What Lies Ahead? Listening to Refugees'. Published by Christians Aware.

NOTES ON VISITING REFUGEE DETAINEES AND HOSTING REFUGEES - AVAILABLE FROM CHRISTIANS AWARE. POSTERS IN SUPPORT OF REFUGEES ALSO AVAILABLE.

SOME CONTACT ADDRESSES FOR YOUR USE

For Information and presentations

BRENT WELCARE (Brent Care For Refugees), rear of Saint Andrew's Church,
145 High Road, London NW10 2QS (0208 459 2278);

BRITISH REFUGEE COUNCIL, 3 Bondway, London SW8 1SJ (0207 582 6922);

CHRISTIANS AWARE, 2 Saxby Street, Leicester LE2 0ND (0116 254 0770);

JOINT COUNCIL FOR THE WELFARE OF IMMIGRANTS, 115 Old Street, London EC1V 9JR (0207 251 8706);

For assistance and advice for refugees

BRITISH RED CROSS SOCIETY, International Welfare Dept., 9 Grosvenor Crescent, London SW1X 7EJ (0207 235 5454);

LEWISHAM REFUGEE UNIT, 8B Hilly Fields Crescent, London SE4 1QA (0208 469 0013);

MEDICAL FOUNDATION FOR THE VICTIMS OF TORTURE, 96-98 Grafton Road, London NW5 3EJ (0207 264 4321);

OCKENDEN VENTURE, Constitution Hill, Woking, Surrey GU22 7UU (01483 772012);

REFUGEE ADVISERS' SUPPORT UNIT (part of the British Refugee Council) advice line 0207 582 9927;

REFUGEE ARRIVALS PROJECT, 2005 Queen's Building, Heathrow Airport, Hounslow, Middx., TW6 l DL (0208 759 5740);

REFUGEE LEGAL CENTRE, Sussex House, 39-45 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF (0207 827 9090);

For counselling for refugees

Contact any of the above. Your local church may be able to help with other contacts. BRENT WELCARE has detailed local information for London.