Happy Christmas and Happy New Year
Generous supportChristmas is an important time for charity fundraising and we have received a number of generous donations, including one from the Cosham Community Choir, a big one from the Diocese, and a few from private individuals, some of whom give anonymously. The sad thing about anonymous gifts is that we don’t get the chance to say “thank you” or to put donors on our Occasional News list. If you happen to come across somebody thinking of donating anonymously please let them know that being on our supporters list does NOT mean that they’ll be receiving endless appeals. We made an appeal five years ago and only one (rather low key one) since. Twenty five years!The appeal five years ago was for our 20th anniversary and in 2019 we shall reach our 25th! Not bad for a small local charity. We started as Haslar Visitors Group, visiting immigration detainees in Haslar Prison. We took over the drop-in when another charity abruptly closed and ran it alone for some months till the Red Cross came to join us. Haslar, renamed an “Immigration Removal Centre” closed in 2015 but by that time we had already changed our name to “Friends Without Borders”. If anyone remembers the very early days I should be interested to hear from them Fareham WelcomeThe work goes on. Portsmouth still has 200 asylum seekers dispersed to it, none of whom are allowed to work. Recently, as regular readers know, they have been required to “sign on” eleven miles away at the police station in Fareham. Part of Mrs May’s “hostile environment” think cynical people - but the main police station in Portsmouth is being rebuilt, so perhaps not pure cynicism, though it is not yet clear if the new building will have facilities for signing on. Meanwhile a team from Holy Trinity Fareham is meeting asylum seekers as they sign on there and offering them coffee. Well done Holy Trinity! The Vicar came to meet us at the drop-in recently. A Headache for some asylum seekers is that they lose their claims and are told to leave the UK. They don’t have permission to work, rent, drive or hold a bank account. They aren’t given any cash or accommodation by the Government. But some are trying to make fresh claims and some are from countries to which they quite literally cannot go back as their own countries won’t accept them. There are about twenty like this in Portsmouth. And on any one night four or five will be sleeping rough. We’ve been looking into how we might help them and have had some interesting advice from Southampton and Winchester Visitors Group. They were renting some rooms for destitute asylum seekers but were advised by a top lawyer that under the Right to Rent Act they could not rent rooms but could rent a complete housing unit for use as a “hostel”. We’d like to find a “housing unit” ourselves, at least for January and February. The B wordOur Access for Justice project is gearing up for Brexit. A complicated situation when you have European nationals of African heritage working in the UK. We wait, as do they, to see what the new rules will be. Happy New Year!
Michael Woolley, Chairman Michael Woolley, Chairman Friends Without Borders chairman@friendswithoutborders.org.uk Office - 023 9283 9222 Office address: All Saints Centre, Commercial Road, Portsmouth PO1 4BTto edit. |
