Volunteering with asylum seekers and refugees

[Lemniscate8]

There is so much said on MN about asylum seekers and refugees, and often it is speaking about them as a block, rather than by people who know any as individuals.

AIBU to suggest that some of you who currently feel fear and hostility have a go at some volunteering to get to know one or more individuals and see if your feelings change?

There are lots of ways to get involved in helping welcome a refugee to the country, and maybe more people extending more welcome will help with intergration, which seems to be one of the main concerns of some posters.

Many places have volunteers facilitating english conversation sessions, or literacy support. Many councils look for volunteers to support refugee and asylum seeker children in schools, you can ask your local council, or one of the main refugee organisations what volunteering opportunities are available in your area.

Also volunteering with any homeless charity is ineviatably going to bring you into contact with refugees, as so many are sleeping rough

You can find out about people first hand, rather than through the right wing press. Personal relationships can only help people understand each other better

In the last few months I have started occasionally volunteering with asylum seekers and refugees. There is a drop in centre where they can learn English, the children play games, a clothes bank and there are snacks and lunch is made and other things I'm not aware of. Some also volunteer at the centre. I give my unwanted items like sauce pans and crockery which is gratefully received and given to them for free.

@saraclara they are allowed to volunteer without having been granted leave to remain.

There are probably more than 3 groups.

But however many there are, I don't think they are a good fit for 'cultural enrichment' via volunteering with refugees and asylum seekers.

I don’t mind if people want to volunteer or do the refugee at home charity (even better as their own house) but the system is not great as is. Chaotic, dangerous, unvetted and rewarding traffickers with vast profits.

Ah so its the local communities and locals that are in the wrong, I'm pretty sure and know that if majority were young women and vulnerable children that were seeking refuge and willing to assimilate into the culture and area there would be huge swaths of support for you and the OP.

But as usual you preferer to act blind to the fact a majority are men, young men of fighting age and a large volume that do not care for our culture or what they can give back to the country that is paying for and supporting them.

My error. It's voluntary work that they can't do. And there's a difference.

People seeking asylum are allowed to volunteer at any stage of their application process. However, government guidance prohibits people seeking asylum conducting voluntary work. This is an important distinction for local authorities and partner organisations to be aware of and is important to protect people seeking asylum from exploitation.
Home Office guidance explains:

• "With Voluntary Work there is an obligation on the individual to perform the work, and in return an obligation on the organisation to provide it; and [...] the individual is rewarded for that work, through money or benefits in kind."

Eh? I didn't say the local communities were necessarily in the wrong. I'm talking about who I think would be a good fit to volunteer with refugees and asylum seekers.

Whether a person objects to asylum seekers and refugees in their community on the grounds of simple prejudice OR because they may (or may not) have legitimate concerns about overcrowding, over-pressing of services, etc - it doesn't change my view. I still don't think they would be ideal candidates for volunteering with this group.

I worked in education for a long time.

i was interested in other cultures and travelling so new children to the uk were usually put in my class.

some were lovely. Some … were not.

attitudes to women from some of them were… interesting.

it is completely possible to help refugees personally and also hold the view that there are better ways to organise help for people displaced by war etc. personally I’d be in favour of a properly funded world refugee agency that supported people close to wherever the issue was.

The closed minds and hatred are astonishing, many responses devoid of humanity and even basic knowledge. Astonishing especially when you consider the outpouring of hearts and soul searching that happens on here when it concerns a badly treated dog.

No thanks. I live in a town blighted by one of the hotels. There have been sexual attacks in daylight. No one can walk their dog in the forest alone. Pupils from the local secondary are no longer to walk home alone. It’s a nightmare for safely, and also for working parents.

The town wants them gone, not interested in getting to know them or their stories. Also not in the slightest bit interested in helping them to integrate. We just want rid.

I would help with women and children.

i don't think we should accept any male asylum seekers / illegals migrants

Why how many times do dogs rape women and girls, stab people, intimidate the local community in their groups, steal and demand our taxes and free 5* accomodation?

How many dogs just appear on our shores with zero knowledge of their temperament and history and dump all their vets papers in the sea?

Your post drips of saviour and lack of judgment of whom your are defending with zero care for the impacts these unknow people have on others.

why assume I am white? Why assume the people I volunteer with are not white? What would it matter, in a white majority country, if the people volunteering to welcome refugees are themselves white? This is a very prejudiced post

I dont recognise any of what you describe, working in schools in London

‘@ TempsPerdu
An interesting and worrying perspective given you had years of experience.

My take is that once some of these communities become large enough, they can exist in their own bubble of living alongside each other, education, worship and socialising. There is no need to learn English , and minimal interaction with English speakers. I met people, particularly women, here decades but unable to speak a word of English..

I think it is very easy to call something "patronising" without being clear what is meant by that word, rather than address the actual issue, which is that there are posters on here who seem to feel fear and hatred towards a whole body of people when they have not properly met anyone from that body of people. I am suggesting one way to support intergration and build bridges, which could benefit everybody. What are your suggestions? Although from your post it would seem this is not the stage of your life you could be actively involved, what suggestions do you have for those that could be? And that you would be prepared to be involved with at a different stage of life?

Yes I know, but I am hoping that perhaps even a small handful of readers might consider my suggestion, it can only help.

Ok, you can volunteer just with women and children, that is possible. But if you have sons? They could be refugees in someone elses country one day. How would you like them to be welcomed? or your nephews, or brothers, or grandsons, or any other male relatives

Do you really think the system is a good one? That it’s important we promote it and keep it going. When you look at the vast profits for traffickers, the danger and the lack of security here.

@Lemniscate8 With the implication that what I have posted here is false, while your experience is the objective truth? Or rather, that people’s experiences will depend on where they live and who they interact with?

According to govt figures, asylum seekers are 79% men. I support people coming in through authorised routes-Ukraine and Afghanistan but I don’t think we should accept anyone who comes here illegally. The big problem is we can’t physically turn around the boats, and many countries refuse to accept asylum seekers who are rejected so deportation is a real problem. We don’t have the money to support this system, it takes billions of £ that we need. If we are to spend money on some of these people it needs to be on improving their lives in their own countries. No matter how lovely, kind and educated many of them are they don’t share our cultural values and I don’t want the UK to lose our Eurocentric view of the world.

No, I think there should be a centralised system, whereby anyone can apply to the UN as an asylum seeker from anywhere in the world, and the UN will allocate them to a country. That does mean that our numbers would be very significantly higher, but we are not taking our fair share of refugees at the moment.

I also think that it very much depends on the cultures that the refugees are coming from and where they cluster. My area of London has received mainly refugees from very rural, non-literate areas of specific Islamic countries, and has the highest concentration nationally of migrants from a few specific states that are notorious for corruption and organised crime (constantly in the media at the moment). Other areas will have a completely different profile.

Same. But in my city those seem to be in pretty short supply.

Many of us, have already done volunteering and slogged hard at jobs, so don't have much more energy. May I suggest you do you and dont try to control other people's fears, concerns and aspirations. Not all of us need to signal our virtues.

Yabu
we need to stop illegals coming here thanks