Refugee Housing Association POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS: Being a Refugee in Britain Researched and written by Nando Sigona and Andreea Torre FULL REPORT POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Foreward Welcome to Positive Contributions: Being A Refugee in Britain, a research report commissioned and funded by Refugee Housing Association (RHA). RHA has been an established provider of quality housing and support to refugees and asylum seekers in the UK for over 50 years. Beyond housing, RHA is committed to promoting the positive contribution refugees and asylum seekers make to UK society, in addition to providing services and undertaking activities that ease their settlement and integration. Historically, all RHA staff members have been responsible for promoting positive contributions as a continuous requirement of their job roles. However, in 2004 the RHA Board decided to look at additional ways of promoting and validating positive contributions at a wider, organisational level. Our decision was prompted by several contemporary factors. Firstly, research around the positive contribution of refugees has tended to focus heavily on large-scale economic analyses, involving comparisons of state expenditure on asylum support and benefit payments to refugees against refugee contributions to the UK via taxation. The sources of this information are varied and arguable. This, in addition to the highly politicised context in which such work is carried out, has led to a range of different conclusions about the existence and extent of the positive contribution of refugees. Secondly, a portion of research and policy initiatives have concentrated on refugees and asylum seekers with skills in professions in which the UK struggles to fully recruit, such as doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers. The majority of the research and campaigning work around the positive contribution has also tended to rely on examples of extraordinary individuals, such as a recent campaign around Albert Einstein’s refugee background. Both these approaches have undoubtedly raised valuable issues. However, they tend to obscure or marginalise those refugees and asylum seekers who are not immediately able to contribute on such grand economic or cultural scales, those who remain in need of protection and able to contribute to UK society on a day-to-day basis through community, family, politics and other means. Positive Contributions: Being A Refugee in Britain is designed to provide a space in which individual, ‘everyday’ refugees and asylum seekers can express their views of the positive contribution – what it means, how it is affected by life in the UK, and their hopes and aspirations for its development in the future. In addition to the research team, RHA would like to thank the 20 refugees and asylum seekers who gave their time, thoughts, photographs and journal entries to the project. We very much hope that the report has provided a means for their voices to be heard, and shown that refugees and asylum seekers are an invaluable resource without which UK society would be substantially poorer. Gillian Ashmore Chair of the Refugee Housing Association Board 2 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Contents Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 5 1 Methodology Workshops In-depth interviews Diaries Photo-elicitation Portraying life: a methodological note 7 8 8 8 9 9 2 Introductions: who’s who 10 3 Being a refugee in Britain 15 3.1 Asylum experience When I arrived… Expectations Lives on stand by Impact on families Getting the status 15 15 16 17 19 20 3.2 Identity and integration Here and there New and old wor(l)ds Renegotiating gender roles What future? More on positive contributions 21 22 23 24 26 26 3.3 Points of view First impressions and discoveries Please listen... In the aftermath of the London bombings 28 29 30 31 3.4 Being in Britain Home making Social and spatial interactions A piece of everyday life 33 33 36 39 4 Conclusions 41 3 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the people who helped with their work in RHA offices in the four cities where the research was carried out, Rachel Westerby at RHA for her support, Andy Inch for having proof-read the report and, of course, the participants for their positive contribution (to the research). This report is the result of the work and collaboration of 20 refugees and two migrants [Na and An]. 4 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS 1 Being a Refugee in Britain Introduction From the moment we put the application, the stigma of being an asylum seeker was terrible. You would hear the radio about asylum seekers, you would read papers about asylum seekers, then the TV. It was very difficult. I always tell to my husband that that’s one part of our lives that I want to completely forget, because psychologically we were totally depressed, both of us. [F] Two events in recent months have dominated and led the debate on asylum and refugee integration in Britain: the general election and the July terrorist bombings in London. The election saw the embitterment of political confrontation around these issues, with the rhetoric of control and security dominating the public debate. According to Trevor Philips (Council for Racial Equality), ‘the recent general election showed that vilifying and degrading asylum seekers is popular with some of the public and some sections of the media. The consequences for race equality and particularly for ensuring good race relations between communities are immense’.1 For McLaren and Johnson, 2 the current political discourse around asylum best explains the increase in negative public attitudes. The media sets the terms in which public debate occurs and can provide the stories and material to justify prejudices. The security and control approach to asylum was strengthened by the climate of terror produced by the bombings in London. In the wake of the terrorist attacks, while some tabloids reinvigorated their usual anti-asylum campaigns, the Government introduced a number of new counter-terrorism clauses to the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill. These clauses raised concerns amongst a range of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) who pointed out that: ‘taken in conjunction with the broad definitions of terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Terrorism Bill 2005, they [the clauses] directly undermine one of the core purposes of the Refugee Convention: to provide protection for people seeking asylum on grounds of political persecution’.3 However, as Flynn notes, this negative attitude toward asylum seekers can be traced back to 1997: Since its election the government has taken draconian action to restrict access for people coming to the UK as asylum seekers. For most practical purposes there are now no legal routes to Britain for people fleeing persecution in their own countries. Those who manage to clear the obstacles placed in the way of entry to claim rights provided for in the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees or the European Convention on Human Rights are then subject to procedures which effectively classify them as criminals, liable to be detained or subject to serious penalties for any further 1 Lewis, M (2005) Asylum: Understanding Public Attitudes, London: Institute for Public Policy Research 2 McLaren, L and Johnson, M (2004) ‘Understanding the rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment’ in A. Park et al (eds) British Social Attitudes: The 21st Report, London: Sage Publications 3 Refugee Council et al (2005) Parliamentary briefings: Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill: Counter Terror Clauses, 10 November 2005 5 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain infraction of the rules until such time as their applications for asylum are finally resolved.4 Despite the public interest and daily media coverage given to asylum, a remarkable absence must be noted – that of refugees and asylum seekers’ own voices. The human and experiential dimension of asylum is often marginal in media accounts. As a consequence, the risk of dehumanizing refugees is real and tangible.5 According to Lewis,6 there is a general assumption amongst the public in the UK that the vast majority of asylum seekers are not in fear of persecution and should not be claiming asylum. In keeping with this view, Lewis also found a generally poor knowledge about international issues: ‘virtually no participant mentioned events such as the war in Iraq or Afghanistan as potential drivers of asylum’. This serves as further proof of the importance of letting refugees take the floor. The main aim of this report is to show, through their voices, that refugees and asylum seekers contribute positively to British society, not just in economic terms but also, and above all, socially and culturally. It develops the idea of positive contribution in three main directions: • • • refugees enrich British society through their presence by multiplying points of view and creating an attitude that is conducive to questioning assumed truths and credos their knowledge, skills and resources enhance society as a whole when they become part of our common shared values and culture forced migration is a result of highly interrelated social and economic processes occurring at global level. As individuals living in ‘our midst’ refugees, asylum seekers and forced migrants bring direct and actual experience of these processes to society.7 Giving refugees a voice means creating a space where this voice can be heard – a context where it is possible to retrieve details of a normality that refugees and asylum seekers endlessly build, even in the most adverse of circumstances. The fieldwork began in July in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in London. It was, of course, an unplanned circumstance that inevitably became part of the research, as many respondents recorded their emotions, impressions, and observations associated with the attacks in their diaries or expressed their views during interviews. We will come back to this later in the report. 4 Flynn, d. (2003) Tough as old boots? Asylum, immigration and the paradox of New Labour policy, Immigration Rights Project (IRP), London: JCWI 5 Crawley, H. (2005) Evidence on attitude on asylum and immigration: what we know, don’t know and need to know, Working paper n.23, Oxford: COMPAS; ICAR (2004) Media Image, Community Impact: Assessing the Impact of Media and Political Images of Refugees and Asylum Seekers on Community Relations in London, London: ICAR and GLA, www.icar.org.uk/pdf/mici004.pdf 6 Lewis, M. (2005) Asylum: Understanding Public Attitudes, London: Institute for Public Policy Research 7 Castles, S. and Miller, M. (2003) The Age of Migration. International Population Movements in the Modern World. London, New York: The Guilford Press; Bauman, Z. (2004) Wasted lives. Modernity and its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity Press. 6 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Methodology The initial stage of the research involved the selection of participants. Following a call for volunteers, circulated primarily in RHA offices, and thanks to the support of RHA staff, we received 44 applications. The main sampling criteria were: • • • • • gender balance age balance (applicants were divided into three age groups) length of stay in Britain (in order to capture different views about the country, from first impressions to more experience-based considerations) legal status (in order to get the views of people at different stages of their asylum experience, including newcomers, quota refugees and British citizens) a variety of social circumstances, including single men/women, families, and single women with children. In order to get the of different generations differences and perceptions of life in Britain according to different social/family roles we also selected a husband and wife and a mother and daughter. Applicants were divided according to their location. The draft list of participants then had to be revised and adjusted several times as some applicants dropped out at various stages of the selection. As one of the main aims of this project is to promote a sense of ownership of the research by its participants, the research was designed to facilitate and pursue an active involvement of participants in the research process 8. Participatory techniques and a range of qualitative research methods (in-depth interviews, photo elicitation and diaries) were employed to overcome the problem of how to get at the everyday life of people seeking asylum in Britain. 9 The variety of methods provided some flexibility and choice for participants. The diversity within the group, differences in literacy, and varying levels of fluency and confidence in English meant that the opportunity to choose among different options gave each person more space to find his/her own way to communicate. The research does not attempt to offer a definitive account of what being an asylum seeker or refugee in Britain means. It is important to be aware of the partiality and moment-ness of the accounts offered. What this research aims to do instead is to open some windows on the everyday life of our participants. The fieldwork was structured around four stages, as follows. 8 Temple, B. and Moran, R. (2005) Learning to live together: Developing communities with dispersed refugee people seeking asylum, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Free online at www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/eBooks/1859352871.pdf; Bloch, A. (2002) The Migration and Settlement of Refugees in Britain, London: Palgrave 9 Latham, A. (2003) “Research, performance, and doing human geography: some reflection on the diary-photograph, diary interview method”, Environment and Planning, 35: 1993-2017 7 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain 1. Workshops The research project started with three workshops organised respectively in London, Derby and Sheffield, Nottingham was added at a later stage. The workshops introduced participants to us and the project, presented the methods we were going to use, and encouraged discussion and empathy among participants. How is it to be interviewed? How to interview? For most asylum seekers and refugees doing an interview immediately brings to mind the interview they had to undergo for their asylum application. With such a memory in the back of their minds, it was not an easy task to create a positive and relaxed environment for our work. We tried to address this in the workshop by inviting participants to interview each other and report to the group the story of the person they interviewed. See below extracts from the notes [Kh] took during her interview with [Fi] in London and from [Mu]’s interview with [L] in Sheffield. 2. In-depth interviews The next step consisted of individual meetings with participants. The in-depth interviews were arranged mainly at participants’ homes, or where most convenient for them. Participants were asked to tell their story of life in Britain and to explore a number of issues related to their arrival in Britain and the process of settlement. Interviews were semi-structured and adapted to the different backgrounds and circumstances of participants. 3. Diaries At the start of the project we gave each participant a diary. These were unstructured, although guidance was given during the initial workshop as to what participants 8 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain might write about. They were asked, over a period of two months, to record day-today events, impressions of encounters and places, and their views and reactions to events reported in the news. The open format allowed participants to approach the diary as they felt most appropriate. 4. Photo-elicitation Each participant was provided with a disposable camera and was asked to take, during a one month period, pictures of significant physical elements of their living space and their neighbourhood, of events or people. Afterwards, we met each participant individually again and, with the support of the photos, conducted a photofeedback session. Photographs are a very powerful tool for capturing significant aspects of people’s lives.10 In our case, they allowed the research to draw not only on participants’ oral and written accounts, but also on their visual imagination, helping to overcome language barriers and offering people who might not feel comfortable in telling their story through interview the opportunity to communicate their world through a different media. Portraying life: a methodological note Visiting participants in their own environment was, where possible, our favoured option. It was important for us to meet them at home as a way of getting closer to their everyday life, but also to locate them in their living environment, to give a context and a background to the story they were telling us. The interviews were carried out mainly in July 2005. When we met again in September to look at together and comment on the photos, we further investigated the story(s) behind the images. However, we must raise an important methodological point We will introduce it with an anecdote: It was early September when [An] went to visit [Kh] at her new flat. She was still decorating the rooms with new and second-hand furniture. She took [An] around, proud of the home that meant so much to her. [An] started asking questions about the house, the neighbourhood, her life in Britain and her sights fell on a round carpet hanging on the wall, facing the stairs. Its portrait of a traditionally-dressed woman captured [An]’s interest and curiosity. Where did it come from? Who was that (exotic) woman? Before asking these questions, [An] had already guessed at an answer. She must have been a mythical figure, a Kurdish heroine, she is likely to have thought. Then [Kh] explained: This is a traditional….but I don’t know, if it’s about Kurdish women. I’m not sure if it was made in Iraq or in Iran. My brother got it when he was on holiday. It is hand-made. However, she is very beautiful, it is like an, how do you call it, advertisement? Yes, for beauty. I like looking at it, it makes you happy, it’s something beautiful. [Kh] 10 Banks, M. (2001) Visual Methods in Social Research. London: Sage 9 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain The round carpet hanging on the wall in [Kh]’s home. Visiting a place does not guarantee we really understand what we see. Unless we allow ourselves time to listen, and for our interlocutor to narrate, we are likely to bring our own meanings and interpretations to what we see. An exercise in communication may therefore easily become an example of miscommunication, reproducing prejudice and stereotypes instead of helping to dismantle them. 2 Introductions: who’s who To introduce, even if in a few lines, the person behind the quotes, images and diaries which are presented here is crucial to the aims of this research. Creating a space to listen to refugee and asylum seeker voices requires recognition of the value and significance of their stories as individuals. In these stories we have found a continuous dialectic between here and there, present and past, which, despite being articulated differently by different participants, are an important constant in many aspects of their lives. As we want to focus here on the everyday lives of refugees and asylum seekers in Britain, we decided to keep the past (life before their arrival in the UK) as a background, a context for framing their quotations – not an appendix but an introduction. 10 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain [Kh] is 29 years old. She lived in Baghdad most of her life. Her father moved there in the 1960s with his brother. They escaped when their village in the north of Iraq was attacked by the Sunni: ‘A big city can be safer for Kurds’, they thought. [Kh] was a teacher in Iraq. She had been teaching for two years when she had to flee. She left Baghdad with her brother, and they took their family car and drove to Kurdistan. They reached Istanbul by coach, where they rented a flat for two weeks and waited for travel documents to be ready. On July 1, 2001 she landed in Heathrow. After one month she was given Exceptional Leave to Remain. [S] is 45 years old and came here with his family. He has two children. One was newly born when they fled from Eritrea: ‘At that time we didn't have any choice, we were living near the border with Sudan. If the businessman had said Paris, I would have replied yes. It was not my choice, you don't have choice. When he said London, I just said OK’. In Eritrea he was working in hotel administration and ran a small tourist business. Just before fleeing, he completed a diploma in accountancy. He has been waiting for a decision on his asylum case since his arrival in the UK in 2001. [M] came from Iran in 2002 when he was 27 years old. Despite his relatively young age, he has extensive work experience, having begun working while still studying for his university degree. He was an administrator for an international transport company, worked in PR for a private firm, and was a senior legal officer for the Iranian government. He was sentenced to life imprisonment due to his political activity in Iran, and for this reason he took the decision to flee. While he was hidden in north-west Iran, his father prepared some money, travel papers and a few clothes, put everything in a small bag and sent them to him through a friend. After a month in Turkey he flew to Britain. Today [M] has Indefinite Leave to Remain, and still counts the little bag amongst his possessions. From Tehran to Nottingham: the journey of [M]’s bag 11 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain [L] was alone when she first arrived in Britain. Her husband had tried first to come here by going to the British embassy and telling them he wanted to escape from Albania because he was persecuted. The embassy refused his claim. He went back home and told [L] ‘there is no way’. But [L] is a resolute and courageous woman, and she returned to the embassy and told them she was going to Britain for a brief holiday with her daughter [N]. ‘I don't like lying’, she says, ‘I do hate lying, really, but I had no choice’. They gave her just one visa. It was a tough decision to leave alone. She arrived in Britain in July 1998. Her family joined her here one year later. [L] is now 51 years old and has been a British citizen since April 2005. [N] was meant to flee Albania with her mother, but the British embassy refused her a visa. Her mum fled alone and she could not join her until a year later. It was the year in which the Kosovo Albanians fled Kosovo and sought refuge in Albania. There was very limited state support for them and many people took them into their homes. ‘I have a kind of nostalgia for my past there, it's just because that is the place where I grew up and I haven't been there ever since’. [N] is now 22 years old. As soon as she got her degree in London, she left for a job placement in France as part of the Leonardo Da Vinci programme. She will soon be back in London to begin an MSc programme. [I] is a Pashtun. She was given in marriage when she was nine years old, and went to live with her father and mother-in-law who were farmers. When the Taliban took over their village, her troubles began. They asked for money, once, twice, three times, and then they beat her husband and their son. The family had to move to another village, where it was quiet for a year and eight months until the Taliban came again. This time they demanded the deeds for the house, and took her husband and eldest child away. Years have passed without any news of them. [I] has been a refugee in Britain since 2001 – there are photos of her missing loved ones in her living room. When [Mu] came to Britain, she was only 14. She had spent most of her life in Kabul. It was hard to be a Hindu family in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban. In the last few years, the situation was becoming worse and worse – she and her family could hardly leave their home. ‘I can't even speak the language’, she says, ‘because I never went out’. She fled with her father, mother and brother and her grandmother joined them later. It was a tough journey – it took nine months to get to Britain. ‘We had never travelled before and then we were travelling for nine months and it was always like hide yourself, don't ask so many questions…it was always like that ....’. [Mu] is now 17, and her life in Britain depends on a decision on the appeal they have lodged against the Home Office’s initial negative decision on their asylum application. 12 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain [La] fled his country, Liberia, when he was 15. Now, at 29, after more than ten years in a refugee camp in Sierra Leone, he has been resettled in the UK as part of the UN quota resettlement programme. The refugee camp in Sierra Leone was huge – at some times there were up to 20,000 inhabitants – but it was not too far from a city. [La] had friends there and also had a job as a taxi driver. He hasn't seen his family for many years. When they were refugees in Sierra Leone they were not able to stay together. ‘When there is war’, [La] says, ‘if you are with your family, maybe you'll create problems to them. They may be safer, and you as well, if you are alone. In time of war, you only fight for yourself’. [F and W] are from Sri Lanka. They had a good standard of living – [W] was a doctor in the local hospital. However, there was civil war in the country and they had to flee and leave behind their life and social status. They left on 1 September 2002, and came to the UK with their child. Initially, they planned a long holiday, to get out of the situation when it seemed most critical and to return when things calmed down. ‘But then nothing seems to be quiet there’, [F] says. They have had a new baby since their arrival in Britain. [W] is now re-training as a medical doctor here, and the family is awaiting a decision on their asylum application. Before coming to the UK [Je] lived in Ghana, a former British colony. She came to the UK with her husband for a three week holiday in 1982. The political situation in the country made returning extremely dangerous for the couple. Her husband had been arrested and kept in jail for three months. They took the decision to stay. The first thing she did in Britain was to go back to college, whilst doing part-time work. After college came university. ‘First I decided to study law’, she says, ‘but then I thought that my children needed my help because of the way the education system was here. I needed to be able to question some of the concepts that were within the system. So I decided to go and study education. So this is what I did and I think it was a good choice: now two of my children are university students’. [Y] came here alone. He deserted from the army and, after a period in prison, managed to leave Eritrea. First he went to Sudan and from there took a flight to England. It was the first time he had been overseas. He was given Indefinite Leave to Remain and after a few months in London and in a hostel in Sheffield, he recently moved to a one-bedroom flat: ‘Sheffield is better’, he says ‘there are people who help me here. In London I met no Eritrean people’. [Jo] has several identities, or perhaps just one but with many layers. He is Catholic, Georgian and a former Soviet citizen. He is an ethnic Kurd. He is a journalist, a human rights activist, an interpreter and, years ago, was a soldier in the Soviet army. 13 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain In 2001 he went to a party in Tiblisi. There were many important people there. Someone took a photo of him speaking with a Vatican envoy. The authorities didn't like it and he was arrested and tortured for two weeks. His organisation was banned. When he came out of prison he was told to leave the country. Since 2002, he has been an asylum seeker in Britain. His case was rejected by the Home Office. He appealed and since then (July 2002) has not received any further decision. [Ma] came to Britain in July 2000. She fled from Kenya where she was working in a community centre for an NGO with disabled children. Since 1997, the political situation had been getting worse and worse for the members of her tribe, and eventually she found herself with no option other than to leave. After five years in the UK, she is still waiting for a decision on her asylum application. The first of her three children is now at the age to start university, but this is on hold until the Home Office reach a decision on their asylum claim. Her youngest child was born on August 23rd, 2005. When we first met [Ma] she was visibly pregnant – the moment when her water broke is recorded in the diary she wrote for this report. [K] arrived from Iraqi Kurdistan after escaping from prison. His journey brought him via Iran, where he spent eleven months. In Tehran, with the help of fellow Kurds, he found a job as a mechanic. Then, he walked from Iran to Turkey. It was a long and difficult journey - he stayed three months in Istanbul, waiting to leave. He reached France by lorry and then, by train, came to London where he found a large and welcoming Kurdish community. He was given Indefinite Leave to Remain and is now thinking about his future, and hoping to build a family here. [P] came to the UK from Angola in 2002, on November 5th. London was his first destination. After seven months he was moved to Nottingham. ‘I didn't know anything about Nottingham before moving here’, he says, ‘but now I like Nottingham, it's more quiet ...now, for me, Nottingham is better than London. I've got more friends here than in London’. [P] is 25 years old, and is currently studying IT and Accountancy. He is glad of the opportunity to continue the studies he began in Angola in Britain. [Hu] was born in Lebanon. In 1993, while working for the Red Cross, he was forced by personal circumstances to leave the country. At that time he had just got married, and together with his wife they decided to move to Brazil where his brother-in-law was living. They settled in a place called ‘Three Borders’, between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. After a few years, they decided it was time to go back to Lebanon. His hope was that the problems there would have been resolved but, after just a few weeks in Lebanon, he realised the situation was still very dangerous and fled again, this time to Britain where he had the support of his brother. 14 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain [Ab] is just 22. He arrived in Britain this year as part of the UN quota resettlement programme, but left his country, Liberia, a long time ago. Having left his family behind, he previously lived alone in Egypt for five years: ‘I'm not even in touch with them’, he says, ‘I don't know where they are right now. I'm sure they are somewhere around. I'll just have to find them some day. They are always in my head, so I don't need pictures and stuff [to remind me about them]’. Life in Egypt was tough, especially for black people. ‘Often people were not friendly at all, and there was a lot of discrimination’, he says. When the UN referred him to the UK, he had to undergo some medical checks, and was then taken to the airport. When he landed in London, somebody was waiting for him. Of his experience as a refugee he says: ‘I learned how to be patient, how to wait for your time, how to struggle. You know, I've been doing this for a long time, since I was 15. Now I try to make everything easier’. In 2002, when [Ka], 32, from Angola, arrived in Britain, she was accommodated in a hostel near Heathrow for three weeks. She was then moved to Glasgow where she spent a year. ‘I was nine months pregnant and there was a man who was often knocking at my door, kicking my door. I don't know how to call him, maybe a little bit crazy, he was suffering with schizophrenia’. She reported the problem to the police, and was offered an alternative place to stay in Nottingham. [Ka] has Indefinite Leave to Remain. She had her second baby just a few months ago. [Fi] used to work as a postman back in Angola. He drove through villages In his car, which were often just a single straight road, and everyone knew, seeing his car passing, that he was bringing news. He did this job for two years, then the war forced him to leave his city, Cabinda, and his family. It was his first journey abroad. He was scared. Other people were sleeping and drinking on the plane, but he couldn't: ‘The journey to England was terrible’, he says, ‘but now it's OK’. [Fi] is 24 years old and has been granted Exceptional Leave to Remain. He speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French and English and this has helped him to make a lot of friends. 3 Being a refugee in Britain 3.1 Asylum experience When I arrived… ...I didn’t know anybody. It was very difficult especially at the beginning, because I didn’t know the language, the behaviour of the people, and the system. [Y] Many accounts of arrival in Britain begin with these words. A vivid and vibrant memory of those moments surfaced during most interviews. Sometimes what strikes 15 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain the newcomer is a shiny car, a well-off neighbourhood, the words he/she can’t understand, the police asking questions, a train station, or the bus that took him/her to a hostel where they spent their first night in Britain. The arrival is not only the exact moment she/he landed at Heathrow, Gatwick or wherever – It extends to the first days, weeks, sometimes months, and is a time of uncertainty and discovery: When I arrived here I couldn’t understand anything, so my brother-in-law had to come with me, for example to the GP, and everywhere…and it was so embarrassing. And I promised myself to learn English. So…I had some trouble in the beginning but I managed because I had to survive and I was lucky to have my sister here. [Kh] When we [S and his family] arrived in London, they dispersed us to Derby. But when we arrived there they said: we are going to give you another place because the other one is not ready. I said ok, and they gave us this house. So when we came here I gave to my solicitor this address, the one they gave us. He said, ok, no problem, I will update you. But all the documents were sent to the old address. And nobody told me anything. So finally the Home Office dismissed my case. When I understood that my case was dismissed I tried to write letters here and there but nobody responded. [S] Arrival is also the time when interviewees come to realise that from being individuals they have become ‘asylum seekers’: When I was complaining nobody was listening because I was just a refugee, and refugees are all the same. For them, you have no personality, no dignity, no pride. [L] Initially I was scared to make friends being an asylum seeker. Actually I still have that fear because it’s like…although people could be talking to you nicely outside, on the inside they could be thinking something else. [F] Initial contact with the bureaucracy running the asylum system is not easy. The newcomers have to find out about roles and rules that will govern this crucial stage of their lives in Britain: The only problem I had is that there isn’t actually somebody who gives you proper advice. If somebody would have told me what was going to happen, I could plan my self better. [M] At that time, because we were new, we didn’t know what was the difference between Refugee Action, NASS, Home Office, solicitor…you know, we didn’t know who is who. [S] Expectations Arrival in Britain brings with it dreams, expectations and fears. Newcomers fled their own country in search of protection, so the new country for them represents a land of freedom and hope: I just wanted to feel free, that was the first thing. I didn’t want to be looking anymore behind the shoulder, with fear. So here at least you feel a little bit safer. You can go to report something to the police. Back home it was not like this, unless you bribe them. You may put yourself and your family in trouble. So this is one thing that I find different here, you at least feel safe. 16 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain You can speak without the fear of being punished because of what you are saying. [Ma] The image of the new country is built up through fragments of knowledge, impressions and imaginings that sometimes represent only a tiny and partial fragment of reality. The risk of idealisation is, therefore, incumbent and consequently so is the possibility of disillusionment. The following quotations show the mixed feelings that crowded the minds of newcomers when they arrived, but also how they tried to make sense of their new reality: When I arrived here, because we used to watch English films, or American films, with the huge cars and nice house and everything is clean and respectful, I thought that I would get that one straight away [Kh]. I thought that when I’ll come here everything will be perfect, that anything you want you’ll just get it. But when I came I understood that here you can have the chance to have a better life but you have to struggle for it, and also wait for the time. [Ab] Maybe the impression I had was that people were so much reserved and cold and…from the movies I saw I thought they were so posh, you know those movies with old English gentlemen and countryside….but, I don’t know, I didn’t have many expectations because I didn’t know much about England. [N] Before coming here I thought that London is beautiful. Because I just saw London on the TV in my country. And on the TV, you just see the Big Ben, London Eye, London Bridge, so I thought that if they have these three so nice landmarks they must have a wonderful city. Then I came here…and all houses are the same, and things were so different from the movies. When I arrived here and I saw London, I thought that it is a normal city: quiet, nice and safe. [Fi] [Expectations] That’s a big word. When I came here first, because we were not planning to stay here, I had no expectations, I had no knowledge of how things were over here. [Je] England wasn’t how I was expecting it, but, somehow is friendly, now I feel is like my own place. I think England is a nice place to live if you know what you are doing. If you have your aims, it’s ok. If you don’t you just get confused. [M] Lives on stand by11 Every time that I buy a small thing for my flat, I wonder: why are you buying this? How are you going to do if they send you back? [Kh] Waiting is part of the life of all asylum seekers: one waits for a letter that never comes, for a decision from the Home Office, for someone else to arrive, for a permit to work, for a place to stay, for a call from the loved ones who disappeared without leaving a trace. Waiting becomes a way of life, the only possible way: 11 IT courses are a common experience in the lives of many asylum seekers, the IT metaphor seems, therefore, particularly appropriate. 17 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Life is very difficult because it’s been about 7 years since I don’t know anything about my husband. And it is difficult because when you understand that somebody died, after two or three years you do like a compromise, but when you lost something and you don’t know what it is happening, then all your life you are waiting. [I] There is no sense of belonging now. Also the children, they don’t have a sense of belonging at all here. You are like someone in the desert, you don’t know where you are, you don’t know your next move, you don’t know which direction you are heading, you are just there, waiting. [Ma] Waiting is hope and despair. There is always a moment in time when hope turns to despair, when even the most positive and proactive person just gives up: Sometimes I feel sad and angry; I think that there is no solution. But sometimes I’m happy with people. And I pray, nobody can help more than god. [Fi] So now I’m here, with these 37 pounds for week and I’m waiting. I’m not allowed to work. And this is hard for somebody who used to be very active as me. Even if my solicitor told me that my situation is very hard. I say that even if I have to wait and endure all this is not hard comparing to what I had been going through before. But still I think I have been waiting too much. [Jo] I had depression because I was waiting for my decision for two years and I couldn’t work. I couldn’t do anything. I did some voluntary work for a while. But most of the time I was just sitting at home. It wasn’t a good experience but, at the end of the day, you think about yourself, about your past, and if you are a sensible guy you may be able to get a little bit of experience from that period, which I think I did a little bit. I mean, seeing people, knowing people, meeting people from everywhere - when I was in Iran I was living in the capital and I didn’t really know people from South, East and West of Iran. And I didn’t see people from some other countries, I didn’t see any Africans, any Jamaicans, any English, any Pakistani, Indians and so on. So your people skills get better but it depends on if you open your eyes or not. Plus you see how much difference there is even among people from your own country. It’s not bad, but it depends how long it’s going to take. [M] [M] eventually received a positive decision. His case didn’t take too long, he says now. In the light of this, the perception of his time as an asylum seeker, of long days sitting in the living room, has somehow changed. He manages to see a positive side to it. Still, it is clear in his mind that the length of time spent waiting can take its toll, even extending its negative effects into the lives of refugees after they gain their status. For some people, the way out is to minimize hopes and dreams. Abandoning or postponing any plans for the future in order to avoid frustration and distress: Not too many [aspirations] really, we take each day as it come. You can’t have very high goals, you try to be positive, which is really difficult, very difficult. [F] 18 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain ‘What have I been waiting for? Can you explain it to me, please?’ [Jo] has just received a letter from the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal saying that, because the notes taken at his interview at the Home Office were illegible, his appeal had been frozen for the past three years. But how could the Home Office refuse his application for asylum in the first instance if the notes could not be read? Impact on families One of the challenges that forced migrants encounter is to learn to cope with the past and the sense of loss that this inevitably entails. Sometimes this can be so demanding for the individual that things falls apart: Emotionally you pay a price. In my case the family was disintegrated, the marriage broke down, everybody was suffering. There was so much tension, a whole life had crumbled. My husband couldn’t cope with this situation and he would take it out on me. I came to a point that I took the children - I had four children with him - and I said, I can’t do this anymore. He started to drink alcohol. He didn’t want to do anything… when you see everything you had, everything you’ve been working for, disappearing and you have to start life again in a foreign land, it is so difficult. The children were emotionally affected too. They were seeing their parents arguing every day, and they would not understand what’s happening. And you don’t know how to cope. [Je] 19 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain The present, as we have shown, can also be difficult to cope with. Uncertainty and dependence on the asylum system make the lives of asylum seekers seem full of question marks. The consequences of this extend well beyond the applicant him/herself. They are, in a sense, socialised within relations between family members and to the community in general: For my children is hard, especially for the older one. It is difficult for him to be secure and to have a sense of belonging. He doesn’t have this now. This is sad in some way. It’s sad for a child not to be able to go ahead with his studies or with what he wants to do. He could say, for example, I want to go to college now, or I want to start working now and then go to college. But he can’t work, he can’t do it. This is a bit sad I think because children are the future, if they don’t start focusing on their life now, it is difficult to do it later. [Ma] Nothing, just waiting. All of us are affected by the waiting… now I’m going to finish my college. I’ll be 18 years old soon and this makes our situation even worse. [Mu] My husband is now on clinical attachment, that’s like training, he is allowed to do that, that’s no problem. So he is happy now because he is in touch with his field, he was really depressed before because he was like out of his profession. This keeps him going. He always says that when he goes there he doesn’t worry about our situation; he doesn’t think about it; he is only looking at his clinical work. And then when he comes back home he starts worrying again. [F] Getting the status Being given a positive decision is a turning point in the life of asylum applicants. It is a time to start thinking of the future again. What seemed far away – the possibility of making plans about one’s own life – is given back to the individual who, especially if he/she has been waiting for years, can feel overwhelmed by the newly regained freedom: It took nearly four years to get a positive decision. I appealed four times. I got very depressed because every time I went to court they ask me about my husband, my children, my mum, it is very, very painful. When I eventually got it, I couldn’t stop crying and crying. My children were asking me: why are you crying? I said: I don’t know, but now I feel a little bit closer to my country. [I] Everything changed. Before I was living in NASS accommodation, now I have my own place. Before I was not getting benefits, now I get them. Now I can work, before I couldn’t. You know, in Africa everybody is supposed to work to survive, and this is the same in Africa or other countries. And…now I can travel, before I couldn’t. Plus now I feel settle, before I didn’t know if they were going to send me back or if we were going to stay. But now I feel settle. [Ka] Waiting time was very hard because I didn’t know what may be happening. Tomorrow they can say, oh, sorry you have to go back. But we were lucky 20 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain because we were a family and we were here before 2000 so we had the amnesty. [Hu] 3.2 Identity and integration I think integration is about how you feel part of a community. So it’s about being part of that community, taking part in the social activities of that community. Integration is about this, you shouldn’t isolate yourself, you have to try to be part of that society. Walk around, get to know the people you are living among. [Je] I’m still going to keep my identity. I’m afraid of losing a bit of my native language, but I can understand everything. But, my identity…that’s me, I can’t forget myself, how could I? [Ab] This question that [Ab] poses to himself, and to us, is open to several different answers. Each individual living outside his/her home country has to deal with it and find an answer. Any such answers are rarely valid once and for all. It is in the very nature of being a migrant and living abroad to think about the issue of identity, to question and be questioned about who you are and where you are from. It is a reflective exercise that moves in parallel with, and develops throughout, the lives of refugees and migrants: Are you concerned about losing your own culture? [Na] No, really. I’m the kind of person I don’t look too much in culture. I’m multifaced, polyhedral. I can change many times. Sometimes, people look at me, and they say: you speak French, do you come from France? I say yes, I come from France. When I speak Portuguese, some people, they don’t understand, they ask where do you come from? I say I come from Angola. They say, in Angola they speak Angolan. I say no, they speak Portuguese. So they get confused and then I say, OK I come from Portugal and they will say, ah OK! [Fi] For parents, there is also an intergenerational dimension to be taken into account. How this manifests itself can vary considerably. For some, like [Ka] below, it is something that can be managed without major problems: My son speaks two languages. He speaks English better than me, probably because he is a child and a child can catch new words better than an adult. [Ka] [Na] Have you ever thought that, maybe, at some point, he will be speaking English better than Portuguese? [Ka] It’s fine because we are going to live in England. He is supposed to speak English better than Portuguese. So, I don’t mind. This is his country, he was born here. [Na] Also his name, Brian, is English... [Ka] Yes, I chose it because I like it. I don’t care, I think we must go for what we like not for Angolan, or Portuguese names just because we are from Angola. We should follow what we like and feel. For others, it poses occasionally challenging dilemmas: 21 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain With my parents I speak Albanian, with my brother I speak in English sometimes. For example, when we argue about politics I find it easier to argue in English. But when we argue on personal matters we do it in Albanian for some reason [N]. Yes, we always speak English at home. So the only problem is that because they always spoke English at home they never got the accent from here. Like they speak the way I speak, you see? I noticed that when they speak with their friends they speak a bit differently than when they speak at home with me [F and W]. It is not simply a matter of language – or rather, it is a matter of language in a broader sense. As the quotation below shows, language defines the boundaries of social interactions. It means being or not being able to talk to one’s grandparents: At home, we try to speak Arabic, our language. So they speak Arabic and English. But now I think they like to speak just English, because it’s easier for them. But it is hard for us to let our children speak just English. For example, they can’t talk or write a card to their grandmother and grandfather. [Hu] But there is also another dimension, which goes beyond language and involves the negotiation of different cultural practices. We will come back to this later, when discussing changing gender roles: We teach them how to treat their friends and other people with respect. We teach them to respect other people and their different religions…we try to teach them what to do, what’s wrong, what’s right. Of course, there are some things that are different, like sexual education, in our culture we never talk about this between father and son. This was very strange for us. For them it was ok, they were happy to know about everything, but for us…no. But, of course, it’s fine, we have to explain, we can’t say wrong things, but…[Hu] Here and there Arrival in Britain does not always mean you have fully left your country. You are trapped somewhere in the middle, negotiating your identity between two worlds which are simultaneously far away and intimately close: When you come here, you start from zero. You left everything behind you. It is like you were born again. So you have to start to learn the language, to get used to the new system, new culture, everything. So, if they send you back is like all that you’ve done is gone, there and here. Now it is like you are in the middle of the road and wait, and you don’t know what to do. The situation there is completely different from when you left and it is going to be difficult to get used to. [Kh] One side I’m ok, but with the other I’m still in my home country, always thinking about that, and about going back to my country. I’m thinking to do some courses here and then go back and work in my country, to help there. It is very difficult, I know, it is like a dream. [I] 22 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain The way of thinking, my mentality has changed. When I speak with friends back in Albania and I start thinking about things I understand that I think completely different. And this is not just because I live in England, is because England is so multicultural and the context is so different. there are differences in the way you can solve problems…so, I don’t feel British but I feel that I’ve changed…hopefully for the best, I don’t know. [N] To look back at the past is an inevitable exercise for everyone. The past is not simply time elapsed, something relegated to memory - it is also your present and, perhaps, your future. Return is sometimes a wish (perhaps just for a holiday), sometimes a project, sometimes a nightmare, and sometimes a dream: This is very frustrating because you think that it’s not your fault, you think that if those people didn’t do those things to me I wouldn’t have this kind of problems. And then, because now I’ve been living for five years here, you think, oh my God, how life would have been for me if all this wouldn’t have happened. I would have done so much by this time. Instead here I’m just sitting down, without being able to do anything. [...] Sometimes I get very depressed. The doctor advised me to have counselling, so I had counselling for almost one year to overcome the depression. [Ma] But I’m still active, I still write articles and sign them with my name even if now I’m in England. And my family told me that police still came to search my house even in 2004. and this is because I’m still doing things, because I believe in this. You see how bad the situation is for me? Don’t you think that this could be enough to grant me something? To grant me some status? [Jo] The political situation back home is for us even more important now because we are suffering a lot because of that. And you are waiting for a change. Once there will be a change, you have to go back, you have nothing to do here. The reason that you are here is because of the political situation there. [S] But, as [S] himself acknowledges, going back is not simple. Living abroad for years changes you and your family. You are no longer the same people: But the problem is that the children now are totally changed. You cannot control them. Now it’s been just four years since we are here but they already talk like English born. So the longer you stay….it will be more difficult. And we are also changing, you can read the newspapers here, the way they discuss about democracy, freedom…it is going to be a big clash if we go back with all the experience we got here. [S] My older son always asks me about our country, about where is his dad, where is his family and friends. But the little one, he doesn’t care about our country because he was very young, he doesn’t remember. [I] New and old wor(l)ds The issues of language and language acquisition appear to be related to the development of a more general sense of confidence about settlement in the UK. In the case of [Ab] it is striking how, despite his fluency in English, language and selfconfidence seem closely intermingled: 23 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain The language is very important. […] It was easy for me to speak English because our official language is English. But at the beginning I didn’t have the confidence to speak, also because here the English is very different from the one back in my country. When I came I thought everybody here is better than me. Yeah, I think it’s the confidence, once you have the confidence, you can do everything. [Ab] A good mastery of English is crucial, not only for establishing a positive relationship with British society, finding employment and so on. It also affects the opportunities for the individual to share his/her experiences with peers from other countries: I have to care first about my English then I’ll take some courses, like plumbing. I would like to do metal work, because in my country I was working as a metal worker. [Y] Despite spending years in Britain [K] speaks poor English, as a consequence his interactions are limited to members of the Kurdish community living in London. He also feels isolated in the hostel where he is currently living: After all this time alone, no friend, no cousins, no children…and here it’s difficult because there is no other Kurdish person in this hostel. [K] But, speaking English is also important because it makes people capable of defending themselves. Feeling confident enough to complain can be seen, in a way, as a sign of belonging to the new society: Especially the young people, they don’t like black people. I can’t say anything when something happens to me because I can’t speak English well. But it is not something that happens often. [Y] Once I went to the GP, I felt like she shouldn’t ask me every time if I was an asylum seeker or not, and I replied: if you keep asking me that I will report you. She was afraid. She was like: no, no, I’m sorry if I offended you. I felt very upset, so after that I asked not to meet that lady again. So, yes, the fact that I knew the language was good because I could defend myself. Because before I couldn’t even understand what people were saying to me. [Ka] Renegotiating gender roles The process of settlement in a new country happens at various levels and is rarely straightforward. It requires continuous adjustments in order to find a balance between different cultural systems and sometimes conflicting cultural norms. It is, as this dialogue with [I] suggests, a search for an acceptable compromise. But the balance is not something you acquire once and for all. It is not a static point that, once reached, is fixed. Rather it is a dynamic and shifting target that moves under the pressure of several different forces: When I go outside, you know, in our country you have to wear the hijab and everything. So I think, oh my god, if my father sees me wearing these clothes he would kill me. In Afghanistan I would wear the hijab, like the scarf and the big coat. And in Nottingham I was wearing that but two or three times English people told me, you Afghani…and things like that…so I decided to wear the Pakistani clothes. So, now, wherever I go, everybody thinks: she is Pakistani. Now I’m safe. [I] 24 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain [An] How do you feel about it? [I] It’s shame, isn’t it? I’m changing my life and my clothes for my children, I’m changing everything. But I’m proud that I’m Afghani and I like to wear my clothes. So for me was very difficult to live in this country at first, very difficult and painful. [An] What do you mean? [I] For example, I was not used to go outside for going to the bank or to the Home Office. I was not used to go shopping. It is very difficult when you did for thirty years the same thing and then you have to change and to learn everything. [An]And are you getting used to it? [I] Now I’m compromising. You know, I’m alone and I have to do it. Now I’m mum and dad and everything. [I]’s personal circumstances – she is a single mother with two children – gave her the strength to engage in this challenging process. Having a positive attitude helps a person to find their own way through a new reality. This implies also the rethinking of social roles, including gender relations: I’ve learned a lot since I came here. In my country they don’t think about studying and everything, they don’t think about human rights, They don’t think…oh, women? Women just make coffee, children, and at night time sleeping and that’s it. But here, women and men are on the same level. [I] There is more freedom here than in my country. There I can’t go wherever I want. I can’t come back late. But here, I can come and go as many times as I want, hundred times, nobody cares. Nobody asks where does she go, but there, no, you can’t. You have to go, for example, with your brother. Or with your mum or your friends. But here… [Kh] If I were in Sri Lanka, I would just be at home and I wouldn’t make an effort to go out and do something. There all my friends were like that and, I don’t know, you just get used to that. Here, instead, you see all women going out to work so this makes you want to do something for yourself also. You can’t just depend on your husband. It is really good. [F] As soon as I settle a little, my children started to go into full time education, I started to think, well, what is now left for me to do. Because when they would go to school I would stay home, clean the house, cook, do the washing but…I thought, how long am I going to do this for? For the rest of my life? No, I need something different. So I saw a college up the street, so I said I’m going to go and see if I can start doing something there. So I went there one morning and ask for some information. They gave me a leaflet and they told me, you can do this, you can do that…So I said, oh, this is what I was looking for. Back home I was working as secretary. But here I went back into education and then I also started university. I think it is very important to empower yourself, nobody is going to do it for you. For me, I came here as young girl, 24 years old, and now, being a grown up woman, I think it was good experience being here. [Je] [Kh], as a single women like [I], is confronted with a very different world than the one 25 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain she came from. This experience produces excitement and fear. There is the constant presence in the background of the twin pressures of community and family, an unavoidable presence with which each individual interacts differently: [An] You said that in your country you, as a woman, couldn’t live alone, but here you can. What does your family think about this? [Kh] They are Ok. When I arrived, my sister was very strict with me, and she was right. She would tell me for example: don’t go out late, don’t get involved with everybody. Because here is multicultural, you can find people from everywhere, from any country, so you don’t know them. Because we don’t have people from everywhere, just from Egypt, Sudan, and Syria, but anyway, I never had contact with them. So she was very strict with me, but I was very curious, I need to know everything, so when they gave the flat to me, I couldn’t believe that I would live alone. My parents some time tell me that I should get married, they say that it is not nice to live alone, but every mother, when you get at a certain age, wants you to get married, to have kids. But now, I really want to get a job, I’d like to learn to drive. What future? To forecast the future is an exercise in imagination subject to reality checks. Once again, participants’ views are shaped by their legal status. Different legal situations play a crucial role in the process of settlement of individuals and their families. How, and to what extent, can an asylum seeker feel integrated in British society when the veil of normality that people make so much effort to build around themselves and their family can be torn away so easily and quickly by events outside their control? It’s ok, really. I mean the girls are more integrated, they are at school so they are always happy. Our neighbours are fine, really. My husband is at the hospital. So, more or less, it’s ok, but still there is the situation we are in at the moment [pending decision on asylum application]. You don’t have the control…if something happens, even if it doesn’t depend from you... [F] I want to do medicine because it was always in me to work with people, different people, to cure them and all that stuff. [Mu] Yes, maybe one day, when I start to work and have my life, I can continue to study and be a translator. Translate from English and Portuguese and French. Yes, I wish that, I want to use that skill. [Fi] I’d like to commit myself to a job, I would also have to help my family, my mother back in my country. Because people have been fighting for 15-20 years and now it’s very difficult to bring things back to normality. [La] More on positive contributions Supporting the involvement of new comers in local community groups is an important tool for promoting community cohesion. Refugees and asylum seekers can bring a considerable contribution to their local community and, at the same time, participation can facilitate the process of settlement in the new country: This area is called D. and they have a D. association where my husband goes as a resident. It was another asylum seeker, she was a doctor as well, 26 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain from Lithuania, and she advised my husband to get involved. She was the one who introduced him. He finds it interesting. They talk and discuss about everything that has to do with the community, from the bus service to…everything really that has to do with this area. He’s been involved in this since the beginning of last year. At the moment, because of the clinical attachment at the hospital is getting a bit more difficult for him to go to all the meetings because they overlap most of the times. [F] Many participants feel the need to repay something of the support and protection they have received in the UK. This need is sometimes frustrated by the prolonged inactivity imposed on them by the length of the asylum process. Methods of repayment vary greatly. For some, it is working and paying tax, for others it is helping other asylum seekers to settle, or to working towards improving community relations: I’m very grateful for what happened to me here and I want to pay it back. Also bringing my culture here, because I’m the only Liberian in this place, so nobody is familiar to my culture. [Ab] Here I work with refugees from many different countries and I try to do my best, I try to tell them how important is to accept the culture of other people and respect it. I think that those who work with communities have a very hard job because they are in between, but they are the ones who can do something. [L] People are waiting here for God knows how long and when they receive the answer, they are going to start from that time. So they already wasted three, four, five years, and this is not really sensible, is it? And, in this way, they also don’t give you the possibility to pay back, because if they will give the possibility to people like me to get some education or work experience when they are waiting for the decision, by the time they get the decision they can start working and pay taxes. [M] We have lived here 6 years. We’ve got a lot of support from this country. They gave us a lot, we will give to this country our hard work and do as much as we can. My son got a job in the department of education in London, and even if it’s for a short time, it’s fine, is very good what he does for this country. We work hard, we do what all the citizens should do, we have rights and we have duties. And one of our duties is to work. [L’s husband] I pushed myself for ten years constantly in fulltime education. And I think it’s all paid off. When you see that you’ve been able to improve yourself, I think this is a great achievement. And you also put yourself in a better position to help others, and this is again very important. [Je] We have an organisation here in this area. It is doing well now. We started about two years ago. I’m the treasurer. We do social work, everything, from language courses to sport activities, children play football, we have a chorus. It was very good to have this organisation because at the beginning there were very few families and everybody was far away.12 [S] 12 If adequately supported, Refugee Community Organisations (RCOs) can play an important role in the process of settlement of refugee communities in dispersal areas, assisting communities and building up a form of collective social capital that can aid community development. For a critical review of current policy on RCOs, see Griffiths, Sigona and Zetter (2005) Refugee community 27 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain The support received is very much appreciated by [Ma], but what she wants is to be active, to actively contribute to the society in which she lives instead of passively receiving support: Yes, I appreciate that I’ve been given support and all that but for me, because I started to work as soon as finished my studies, when I went for my first interview I went with my uniform still on, now it is very difficult because I can’t earn my own money, I’m not able to plan my life. [Ma] They don’t even allow me to do volunteering. Because with all the languages that I know, I speak Russian, Kurdish, German…so I could go to my solicitor and tell him: if you get a Kurdish client for example I can come and translate, for free, just volunteering. I’m offering this country three years volunteer work and still I didn’t get anything. I don’t know why. In other places if you offer your job for free they will use you, yes, come, come, but here it’s been three years I’m applying for free jobs and nothing. I could do many things, writing, interpreting… So…I don’t understand. If they want to send me back, ok, send me back, tell me, but not keep me wait, keep me wait like this. [Jo] 3.3 Points of view When I arrived here I began to question so many things. When you are an outsider, when you don’t live in a society, you can’t see so many things. But when you start living in a place, you also start seeing things in that place and you start questioning. That’s why I always say that living here has been a whole education in itself. This experience is part of the process of maturity. I think it enriched my life in so many ways. [Je] English people when they want something they always ask you, but if you are my friend and you come in my house you don’t have to ask me everything, if you want something you just get it. And by the way, I’m a very shy person, and if you start to ask me everything I get even more embarrassed even if I’m in my own house. [Kh] organisations and dispersal: networks, resources and social capital, Bristol: Policy Press; Zetter, Griffiths and Sigona (2005) “Social Capital or Social Exclusion? The Impact of Asylum-Seeker Dispersal on UK Refugee Community Organizations”, Community Development Journal, 40: 169-81 28 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Extract from [N]’s diary Taking time to listen to a person from a different cultural background can contribute to shedding light on aspects of our own lives and social behaviours which we often overlook or unthinkingly accept. The questions [Je] poses herself are an invaluable resource for the whole of British society. [Kh]´s concerns about etiquette too, although apparently a minor issue, are an important contribution to society, revealing how even the simplest things can be interpreted differently. They act as a warning of the risks of misunderstanding that should be interpreted as an invitation to dialogue. The following sections present the views of our research participants on Britain and British culture and society. There is freshness of insight in their words – surprise, curiosity and embarrassment. Finally, a section is dedicated to some of those comments collected in the immediate aftermath of the July terrorist attacks in London. First impressions and discoveries We asked participants to remember what struck them when they first arrived here. These images tell us a lot about the newcomer and his/her expectations, but they are also a mirror through which to observe British society and how it looks to foreign eyes: I thought that people were very unfriendly. I thought that they didn’t want to talk to you. They always keep distance. But I understood it is because we don’t know each other, that’s why they are behaving like that. I have to get, you know, closer to them, then trying to become friend. [Ab] 29 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Young people in Albania have a different way to interact than people here. It’s more open, more Mediterranean style, more friendly. While here they are a bit more worried, a bit more polite. At least this was my impression when I first got here. Maybe things can change with the time but this is how I found it. [N] When you leave your place and you arrive in this place you feel that you are really a survivor, you feel more comfortable. But soon you see all this negative media and people that never say hello to you…[S] When I came to this country I was completely shocked. I thought, oh my God, the distance between women and men is the same, and women is up sometimes. So, now I understand my rights. It is very difficult to change things, to change the mentality, men’s mentality, men want power. [I] We don’t use to have boyfriends, you get married straightaway, or you can have a fiancé for a while but then you get married. So I was so shocked to see that they have boyfriends, they came around…it was not easy, it wasn’t my habit. In my country we have boys and girls living with their family and then they get married, we don’t have boys going out or girls going out. But I got used to it. [Kh] They just left us in London. There is a Sikh community there and we met so many people who used to live in Afghanistan with us. And it was shocking, all these people, they helped us with everything. [Mu] For some of them, this was not their first visit to Britain. However, they stressed how coming as a refugee changed their way of looking at the world, how new and different aspects come to the forefront for someone who is going to stay: When I came the first time, I was only 18 years old. I never had travelled before. So I was taking the airplane for the first time, up in the altitude. Different things that you see up there. Clouds hanging and all the places seen from above, you know, there was all that excitement, there was a whole new experience. When I came the second time, instead I think I wasn’t impressed. I remember seeing many old houses empty and many people lying in the street. So I said, oh, so this what England is about? Why these houses are empty? You don’t see this in Africa, even if recently I’ve been told this started to happen there as well, especially with people coming to the big cities, they don’t have a place where to go. Why people don’t take over, why there are people living in the streets and then there are empty houses? If they don’t have owners, why people don’t take over? [Je] Please listen... Refugees sometimes feel misunderstood, that their opnion is never requested or listened to. The following quotations are short and informal appeals to the reader. They express views and thoughts that are inevitably partial, but the point here is not to say whether they are right or wrong, grand or minimalist, but rather that these views are often unheard in Britain today: This is the thing that British people don’t understand. they think that we came here just because we want to live here. We fled our countries because there are problems, that’s why we came here. You know, before the war in 30 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain my country, I was not even thinking about coming here. I never thought about leaving my country, because I was going to school, I was happy, I was with my family, everything was ok. Why would I want to go? But things happen… [Ab] There is hate against us, but most of the refugees and asylum seekers, they are studying, and working. [Y] After what I saw these years here - being in schools as support teacher - I have to say that I’m very sorry for the English teachers here. They don’t have any family support. Here there is a distance between school and families. There is no support at all for the teacher and because of this they don’t do any effort, they don’t do their job as they should do it. [L] I think here there is a lot of freedom, more than in other societies. I think also for children, I think it is very hard for parents to give lot of freedom to their children and then when they are 16 years old they just go somewhere else, and do whatever they want. Of course each country has something good and something not too good. Here you can say when something is not good, you are free to speak, in our country you can’t. But then in our culture families are much more united. I spent all my life with my family, with my parents, until this problem happened and I had to go. [Hu] I don’t allow anyone to discriminate me. I’ve seen it. I’ve heard about people being abused and being told, you black go back to your country. But for me, I don’t think I would allow that. You have to show that you are not afraid, you have to show that you belong here. So, because of this I think I didn’t experienced any discrimination. If something would happen to me I would report it or I deal with the people. But some people are afraid, they are scared even to complain about things. I’m not. If there is something wrong I do complain. [Ma] Once the manager of a shop where I was working as supervisor referring to my surname said: oh, your surname it’s a very strange surname for a black woman, isn’t it? This because my surname is an English middleclass name and I remember that when he told me that, all the shop was full of costumers, lots of white women. So I said, what is this supposed to mean? You are discriminating me and you are also being racist. And I said, you know what, to tell you the truth, if your fathers wouldn’t have done what they did I wouldn’t have such an English name. So you see, the racism is everywhere. The discrimination is there. And if you are a black woman you have to prove yourself ten times better than if you were white, and this is just because of the skin colour. [Je] In the aftermath of the London bombings We met [F & W] in Derby a few days after the terrorist attacks in London. In the living room the TV was tuned to a 24-hour news channel. The images of the blasts became the background to the interview. [F] wears her scarf, is a well-educated woman, and a mother of three. The bombings were not directly the topic of our interview, but by addressing [F]’s concerns regarding our taking pictures of her neighbourhood at the time, we inevitably found ourselves discussing what happened in London. She told us that since the attacks she had not felt safe to leave her house 31 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain alone, even though she was aware that there was no concrete risk to her: No, I can’t say that something actually happened, but because of all this insecurity, I always fear that somebody may say something and in that case my confidence will very easily collapse. [F] This is an issue that emerged several times from our conversations: the weakness and uncertainty that makes people feel particularly vulnerable, especially in times of crisis. In [F]’s case, she felt doubly stigmatised, as both asylum seeker and a Muslim woman: It is bad but at the base of that it’s to be an asylum seeker. It’s the connection between these two that makes it worse. If I would be a normal person I would be more confident, but headscarf and asylum seeker don’t work together. [F] No, I don’t go to the mosque now. I pray in the house. I teach my children how to pray here. But we don’t go to the mosque. We should normally go every Friday to pray with the other people because this makes you, I don’t know how to say, feel better. But because the people are thinking that all Muslims are problems, all Muslims are terrorists I prefer not to go. We hope that one day all this will finish and that all people will live in safe places and be together. [Hu] This anxiety is not shared by all participants. A few days later we met [I] in Derby. She is a single mother and refugee: [An] What do you think about the bombings in London? Is it going to be more difficult for you now, as a Muslim woman, to go outside? [I] I don’t think so. It is not a matter of being Muslim. Plus now I live in this country, this is my country, they provide me with everything, I feel safe in this country, my children are safe in this country. When my children say that at school somebody says: oh, you are Muslim and you are like that, and like that, I tell them to say: ok, I’m Muslim, but this is my country, because I live in here, this is like my home. Non-Muslim participants also expressed their views and concerns, but with a more detached attitude. However, for someone like [Jo], whose appearance makes him look middle-eastern, there were worries: I always wear a cross but, you know, these days is better to keep it outside… [Jo] What could be the motivation for the attacks? This was also debated – three views are reported below. They first occupy your country and then they say that you are coming here to steal their money. It is very complicated because they treat you well but at the same time you see what they say about you and the media has a lot of power on people. [Kh] I think they have to change their attitude towards other countries. They have to change the attitude of exploiting other countries. They have to look at other people the same as them, instead of exploiting them. [M] 32 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain I am trying to understand why young British people would choose to blow themselves up. I could understand why, you know, an Iraqi who has lost all his family because of the British soldiers, just wants to come and blow himself up. I know, this is completely unjustifiable but is understandable. But British born, born in this country and part of this society…why, why would you choose to go and blow yourself up in you own country? So integration came to my mind. Is that the answer? Because you could lock up all the Muslims in the UK but that is not going to solve anything. On the contrary. So should it be more integration? I don’t understand what happened. Maybe they didn’t feel part of the society, maybe they never been welcomed and maybe that’s why they would feel alienated by the British society. If you don’t feel part of the society, of course it’s much easier to get brainwashed by these extremist ideas. Your country, of course, is the country where you come from but you have also to change, to integrate. So, of course, everybody is disappointed in a way or by Britain. I am, for example, against the war in Iraq, but I am not going to blow myself up. [N] 3.4 Being in Britain I like travelling in the city. I have my bus pass and when I hear about a place, I take the bus and I go. I like to see new places and learn about them. [Fi] Refugees and asylum seekers are inhabitants of our cities. This chapter aims to present fragments of their lives in four of them: London, Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield. The material presented here draws mainly on the interviews conducted with participants, and the photos they took of their spaces. It is divided into two parts: the first section focuses on internal spaces and the process of home-making, the second looks at external spaces and the interactions that participants establish with the place where they live. Finally, a section is dedicated to the role of churches in the life of participants. Churches are key reference points and landmarks in urban space as many of the participants experienced. Home making Although what makes a place home for someone can vary, feeling at home remains a crucial step in the process of settlement. Home is not necessarily one place – double or multiple affiliations are a constant in the lives of migrants. This is something that will not change, an ontological truth associated with the experience of migration. It also represents a cultural richness that should be valued: I’m never going to change my origins but I feel that I’m settled here, this is my new home now. [Ka] After 23 years, you can’t say that this is not home. Of course, your country is always home because of the treatment that you get when you go there and that you don’t get here. When you get there everybody is running to see you, to ask how are you. So that is home, because you feel wanted. That’s the difference. Another thing that I learned from this society is people’s selfishness. Well, back home is completely different. The cohesion that we have is not here. And than the other thing is the weather, I can’t became used to it, I just can’t. So yes…it is a little bit tricky but, as that musician 33 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain said, wherever I made my house that’s my home. So wherever you are you have to make it home, you have to make it work. [Je] My home is Liberia, where my parents, my brother and friends are, but here I could consider it a home if I have friends, if my family could come over, it could be my home. But my home right now is my country. [Ab] Buying a house is an important achievement in the life of a family. It also indicates a will to settle and stay: Especially when you are at this age, even if you work very hard you can’t build the same life you had before. And you get frustrated when you see that you can’t have things as you want, but, still we are very happy with what we’ve done. We worked hard, we now have this house… [L] The entrance of [L] and [N]’s house. The house where we are now is great. We’ve been living there for the last three or four years. And it’s good, we bought the house now from the council because both of my parents are working now. That is a great area and we feel safe now. [N] 34 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain The feeling of safety [N] refers to has to be interpreted in a broader sense, taking into account that the lives of asylum seekers and refugees are marked by years of precariousness and instability. As the quotations below show, home-making requires a certain degree of safety and stability: At the time I came here, these windows were all broken. So you just imagine, you are coming into your future home which is an empty house, the ceiling is orange, the walls are purple and green, and you come here and see that the windows are broken. [M] Since he was given legal status, [M] has been working hard to clean, repaint and refurbish his flat. The first impression when I got in this house was that I didn’t like it. I just felt terrible, I remember when I went to the bathroom and I saw how dirty it was, that made me feel really really bad. So the first week I was just crying. And my child, for him was also quite…he was used to a different kind of life. [Ma] 35 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain When I got this house, my sister’s friends came here and I told them that I feel like I was born here. Because I used to share with more people and now I’m more free. I feel comfortable here. [Kh] ‘This is the front of my house. When I came for the first time to see the house, I remember staying on the other side of the road and trying to look inside the house. I wanted to know if this window was from the kitchen or the bedroom.’ Social and spatial interactions There are several factors that make a place welcoming or not. Age, social and cultural background, and personal attitude all alter the criteria for assessment. Overall, arriving in a new place is not easy, first encounters with neighbours can be traumatic, and the geography of the neighbourhood can appear a mysterious mess or an indeterminate uniformity: When I arrived, I thought that everything was the same. You know, because of the houses. Sometimes I would get lost. Now I know but before…everything at that time looked the same to me. I couldn’t see the difference. It was difficult to get to my house. I used to walk with my address with me. Some times I would pass my house, and then…where is my house? [Ka] We first lived in the worst place in Sheffield. There was the school there and kids were very naughty, they used to throw stuff at us. But I always used to fight with them because I can’t tolerate people doing things to us and I used to go to them and swear to them. So we called and they came and change us house. Now we live here. We’ve been here for three years and I never seen any problems happening. [Mu] 36 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain ‘This is my room. When it’s night, it’s such a beautiful view out of my big window; and there is all lighting and you can see all the buildings and stuff, it looks so beautiful, like a... I always say, it’s like a mini New York. It’s such a beautiful view. I wish I could take a picture of that.’ [Mu] It’s the worst possible place, especially for me that I don’t know the area. I have to stay here all the day long, until I start college…. it’s so far away, it’s out of the city. [Ab] One day I came and this gate was broken. They broke it. Some other times they throw eggs. Sometimes when we go out they’ll call us names and this is more dangerous. The way that some people are looking at you…some eggs is not a problem, but this….I was trying to move from here, but it’s not easy. they say I have to have more evidence for it. So, I have two certificates from the police, but you can not call the police all the time, you can’t call the police just because someone throw an egg, or when they are looking at you or call you names…. We have no choice; we have to live in that situation. [S] Social roles are spatial – they exist within spaces. But the opposite can also be true. Each individual interacts with, and perceives, his/her neighbourhood according to his/her position within society, the community and the family. This is highlighted by the following quotes: Before coming here the area where I was living in Nottingham was horrible, because everybody knew that I was living alone. So somebody would ring the taxi and the taxi would come to my door and say: do you want taxi? Or someone would ring the door and say: did you order pizza? I say: no, I didn’t. He would say, ok, but you have to keep it. I say why do I have to keep it? And somebody call me on the phone, and letters, and flowers and different things. And then somebody set fire through the letter box. I have very bad experience in Nottingham. Here is perfect. Because it is very small area. Nottingham is very big area. Here I’m ok and my children go to mosque. Before I was living in a different area of Derby. In that area there was only English people. But we eat for example different meat, like halal 37 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain meat, so each time I would have to come to this area to do shopping and after that I go back, so it was difficult. But now I’m fine. [I] In this area there are people from many places, there are shops, there are many facilities. I don’t know if it is a safe area. People say that is not. But they say this because of the black people living here. I don’t know, for us it is safe. [Y] They are very nice people. But I don’t go too much outside, because I’m alone, and people ask where is your husband …[I] I lived here for 15 years and I feel ok here. It’s a nice busy area, lots of different people, you become friend an all that. People think that Bethnal Green has a bad reputation but what I think is that it’s up to the new generation to make it work. So, yes, whatever people say, whatever happens, this is home. [Je] When I came here, because I had the friends from the church who would pick me up from home and drive everywhere, I didn’t know the streets in the city. The only street I knew was from home to the college and back again, and the supermarket which was close and where used to do some shopping. Because I was a woman, you know, I wouldn’t…that’s why I said it would’ve been useful to have somebody from the organisation coming and knock on my door. But they never did that. I remember that three times I tried to see my solicitor and I got lost, three times. I could remember the church which is in the city centre, and that was my lighthouse. And I remember that I was crying, it was snowing and I needed to see the solicitor. Then, when my family came I had to go out, one time to find college for children, for my husband and then I also started to work. [L] Despite the difficulties of settling and the hostility that must sometimes be faced, people show an attachment to the city where they have been placed: Once we get our papers you can go anywhere. I will move out from this area but I’ll stay in Derby, also because my children they have all the friends here, I have contacts with people. In another place you have to start from zero. [S] Initially, I think we will continue to stay here because of my husband, because he is involved in the hospital. So initially here, but then we were also thinking that maybe will be better to move where there are more Sri Lankans also. No, I won’t move, because I don’t know anything except Sheffield so I don’t have plans to move. [Y] Dispersal policy has created a link between asylum seekers and their place of temporary residence, even though the resources available to them are often poor. These links are particularly strong for those who came without an established social network: All the friends I have are from this area. In the new area I’m going, I don’t know anything about. [Fi] It’s all right, not very good, but ok. It’s because of the area, there is no shops outside, no place where to go. In other areas, as Peckham Rye, 38 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Canada Water, is different, there are many Kurds there. But this place is too far, this is not London. If you want to go to see friends it takes you maybe two hours. You need three buses, it is very long. I like Britain, I like London, but not here. Maybe this is not for me. Here there is just Sainsbury. [K] A piece of everyday life My family now is the people from church, The Assemblies of God. It’s a big group. There are Portuguese and French. I played the guitar in there and they also organise things for the community. [P] Churches are familiar spaces in the lives of many participants. As landmarks in the cityscape they guide refugees and asylum seekers in their discovery of the new territory. They represent places of sociality, support and comfort, especially for those newly arrived with limited or poor social networks. ‘That’s the best place, that’s the church where I usually go. I mean, I’m not a Christian but still, I love to go to church, I just love it. This is the best church, it’s in the city centre and when you go there it is so beautiful. It’s like…you feel good. I go there when there’s nothing going on, and I sit there and I relax. I go when I’m tired and…I just go there and I feel so nice.’ [Mu] Going to church is the best way for many to meet people from their own country or religious group, or sometimes just to meet new people and find someone to talk to: 39 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS Being a Refugee in Britain Sometimes in the church, they organise something, like a party, you know, with the community and you meet there. [La] When I came to this country I went to the Catholic church, because I’m catholic. The priest didn’t believe I was catholic because he said I was not looking like catholic. I said: what? Can’t you see the way I pray? However I told him, father I’m Catholic Christian, I’ll provide you with pictures from my sons’ baptism. In the end through some friends I started to go to an Anglican church, they are much more flexible, they would welcome you without asking you too many questions about your religion. [Jo] When I came I stayed in a hostel in Crystal Palace for four months. I used to stay just there, I never went out because I hadn’t money at that time. I met some people there. They said: oh, you like to pray. Yes, I like to pray, because before, in my country I used to go to church everyday. Then they said why don’t you go to church here? There is a church for African people. They asked me where I was from. I said I come from Angola, and they said: yeah, they are mixed. So I went there and I met people from Congo, Angola…I made friends there. [Fi] I have some friends and I go to visit them, and I go to the church which is in my language. It’s a Christian church. I go there everyday. [Yo] There are two ladies that used to come here on Fridays. I’ve known them since I was pregnant with G., they are Jehovah witnesses. I like the way they read the bible and we can have discussion…sometimes when I feel quite low it makes me feel better when they come. Sometimes that thing that is troubling me, we can find it in the bible and this can make you feel better. I met one of them on the street. She came and said hello to me, she asked me if I would like to study the bible with her and have discussions about it. So I said yes and she turned up. But at the time there was another lady coming, she was Jamaican. But I didn’t like the way she was treating me. She was like, oh you are from Africa, you don’t know English. She also asked me what other language I speak, I said I speak Swahili and she started bringing me books in Swahili. But I’m not the kind of person that I tell people this and that, the way you treat me that’s the way I’m going to be until you find out by yourself. So when I met this other person I said, yes it’s ok, you can come to my house. Because she didn’t say, oh, you are from Africa, you can’t speak English. She just came and we discuss normally. So I like them, but I’m Catholic and I wouldn’t change my religion because of being influenced. I’m not the kind of person who can be influenced. So I got to their church few times, they invited me. But you know, I’m a catholic, I’m going to remain a catholic, I’m not going to change. I don’t mind talking to them because what I’m interested in is what is written in the bible. [Ma] 40 POSITIVE CONTRIBUTIONS 4 Being a Refugee in Britain Conclusions Through their work and skills, their histories, thoughts and ideas, refugees and asylum seekers contribute to the enrichment and growth of the wider British society. Giving them a voice means creating spaces for listening and sharing, where the resources each individual brings to society can be discovered and valued, but also where the difficulties and obstacles they have to face in Britain can be articulated and discussed. When speaking about the positive contribution refugees and asylum seekers make to Britain we are discussing something that goes well beyond the economic domain and involves, as shown in this report, a much broader spectrum encompassing important social and cultural dimensions. Refugees bring (hi)stories of the places they come from, but also of the global processes and conflicts connected to those places. They bring points of view which are new to this society, opening infinite possibilities for questioning given credos. They bring knowledge and sensibilities which can become part of a new, shared value system, contributing toward the development of an open, integrated and truly multicultural society in the UK. 41 For further information about Refugee Housing Association or this report contact: Rachel Westerby Refugee Housing Association MHT House Crescent Lane London SW4 9RS Tel. 020 7501 2247 rachel.westerby@mht.co.uk © Refugee Housing Association, Cambridge House 109 Mayes Road, London N22 6UR All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, recorded or otherwise reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Published December 2005. Refugee Housing Association Limited Registered Office: Cambridge House, 109 Mayes Road, Wood Green, London N22 6UR Refugee Housing Association Limited is charitable, registered under the Industrial & Provident Societies Act 1965, No. 20735R and registered with the Housing Corporation, No. LH 1522