The Friends Without Borders Annual Report is now available online.

Last year in Portsmouth

• 236 people were advised by FWB (sometimes many times) – many more helped indirectly;
• £22,036 given in destitution funding by FWB (up from £16,000 the year before);
• £26,784 spent in total (including destitution) on running the drop-in by FWB;
• Journeys Arts Festival was financed with a grant of £9,800 from the Big Lottery obtained by Friends Without Borders;
• Children’s Corner was run by us;
• Access to Justice free legal advice service was run by us (one of only two free immigration legal advice services in the city).​

Click here to read the full report

One of our own volunteers, Bob Thomas, will be taking part in a sponsored 75 mile walk in June for Friends without Borders and the Iona Abbey Capital Appeal.

Bob will be walking from St Columba Church in Fareham to St Columba Church in central London between the 3rd and 10th June. 

You can sponsor Bob's excellent effort via JustGiving, here (Friends Without Borders) and here (the Iona Abbey Capital Appeal).

Our own Chairman, Michael Woolley, has already sponsored Bob and says: "I'm delighted to support Bob and help a very worthy cause, asylum seekers in Britain today are the poorest people in this country, many now completely excluded from the Welfare State. Thank you Bob. 

Friends Without Borders does not normally have to help unaccompanied refugee children as they are cared for by Social Services but we are always available if needed and always interested to hear what is happening.

An American supporter contacted us recently as she’d received an invoice for $2,467 attached to one of these newsletters. It was NOT from us - it was an attempted fraud. Please note we never send invoices to our supporters and only very occasionally make special appeals. Our supporter did the right thing – if you’re in any doubt please get in touch personally before you act.

Frances writes: "Our most successful case so far was a victim of domestic violence. She was traumatised and had no real hope that her situation would improve. She was abandoned by her parents as a child and had no home country to return to safely. She was so overwhelmed when she got the news that she could stay in the UK with her children that she ran around the building, laughing one minute, crying the next. We brought hope to that family and they are now able to live a life free from fear."

Charles writes:  "We have had some very good news in relation to several clients in recent weeks, though as the office opening hours are limited to one day a week this can lead to frustrating bottlenecks for clients. There is nothing to be done about this at the moment though due to the absence of supervisory capacity. "

He adds:  'One of our Access to Justice clients recently received some good news about his leave to remain status from the Home Office after a very long wait. We would like to thank Stephen Morgan MP and his team for their assistance in chasing this up and speeding up the process. Penny Mordaunt's office have also provided valuable assistance to another of our clients recently. It is hugely helpful for the work we do to have responsive and efficient local MPs, so a sincere thank you to them from us for their support.'

Michael writes: It would be wonderful to get a volunteer with a background in immigration law to expand the service. 

It is sad to have to tell you that our wonderful computer man, John Cozens, died peacefully at home on 18th December at 59.

​John was extremely knowledgeable and very generous with his time. He updated and serviced all our computers in 2016 as part of the GRAIL programme. We shall miss him for his expertise but also for himself – one of those supporters who was never very high profile, didn’t come to meetings or sign petitions, but quietly gave invaluable help.

We were recently invited to run a university seminar for a small group of students who have signed up to a unit “People on the move: migration and borders”. We were asked to speak about the work of our charity, which I did for a few minutes before handing over to three asylum seekers who each spoke very movingly about their own experience of the British system.

​Afterwards all those who were able went along to a coffee shop where there was a lot of informal information exchange. A good morning - and very enlightening for the students ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­.

Our Treasurer keeps a record of all the “regular” donations each month, and all the “one off” ones. We of course rely on donations to keep a number of our clients so these are very important figures.

I’m delighted to report that our Regular Donations (with gift aid) reached a record in December at nearly £1,800. It’s classed as Regular because it comes in each month and is the backbone of our finance. However there are also various “One-offs” particularly at Christmas time and this Christmas we broke the £2,500 barrier and set a record there too.

The one-offs are always high in December - which allows us to do some nice things for the clients (a Christmas Party and Christmas presents) and also builds up our reserves a bit for the following year.

​A warm “Thank you” to all who contributed. The volunteers of course contribute all year round – giving their services free. Friends Without Borders has no paid staff and last year gave a record amount to destitute asylum seekers.

Again in 2018 there will be a day long vigil for Refugee Week in Chichester Cathedral.

Strictly speaking this is not a Friends Without Borders event as Friends Without Borders is a secular charity: it is being organised privately by me as Chairman and also by the Chairman of Sanctuary in Chichester, Roger Pask. The date this year is Monday 18th June, during Refugee Week. All are welcome to join us in the Lady Chapel for silent prayer for as long or as little as they wish.

Also in June, on Saturday 2nd, there will be an evening of Poetry and Music at St Paul’s Church in Chichester, in aid of Friends Without Borders and Sanctuary in Chichester.

We’ve noticed a bit of a fall in numbers of people attending the drop-in in recent weeks though not been able to identify quite why.

The Red Cross is no longer collecting food from Costco, which is a long drive and quite difficult to organise and that may be the reason. (Unfortunately we are told that Costco will only deal with the Red Cross so our volunteers can’t help).

A dilemma for charities like ours is that we don’t know whether to be glad or sorry about a fall in numbers! There has been no overt change in the dispersal system which sends asylum seekers to Portsmouth, my personal guess is that numbers will pick up again soon.

Thursday 8 March 7pm at Aspire Ryde PO33 2BN for a special screening of Sue Clayton's film CALAIS CHILDREN. Sue’s an independent film maker - in 2016 she made a film inspired by the events of the camp at Calais being disbanded - following the fate of the children for over a year after it was closed down and out of the news.

​Recently she won the London Best independent documentary award. Sue will be present for the screening and happy to take any questions later. 
 
We are currently talking to Sue about us organising a similar event in Portsmouth and will keep you posted.

One of our Access to Justice clients recently received some good news about his leave to remain status from the Home Office after a very long wait.

We would like to thank Stephen Morgan MP and his team for their assistance in chasing this up and speeding up the process. Penny Mordaunt MP's office have also provided valuable assistance to another of our clients recently.

It is hugely helpful for the work we do to have responsive and efficient local MPs, so a sincere thank you to them from us for their support.

This week our Access to Justice project received some great news.

A family's application for further leave to remain in the UK has been accepted, to their great relief.

​John Bingham, who passed away recently, advised this family on the supporting documents to provide and helped them complete what is a fiendishly complicated application form. John is sorely missed at Access to Justice, but we regularly receive reminders of his tremendous legacy. 

Sadly, John died on 27th September after a short illness. He has been mentioned in this newsletter before and I recently circulated my speech at his retirement so there isn’t much more to say.

Perhaps I can leave the final words to one of our volunteers “John was such a role model for me. His clear mind, compassionate understanding of the rights and wrongs …. and all the legal procedures was an inspiration and a real help.”  This very much states my own feelings – “clear mind, compassionate understanding, an inspiration and a real help”

Journeys Festival

Journeys Festival, organised by our partners Art Reach, is taking place in Portsmouth between 19th and 29th October. There’s an exciting programme of Theatre, Music and Fine Art events and discussions throughout the period and throughout the city. We would particularly draw your attention to the contribution of the Zimbabwean Majid Dhana, one of our “old boys”, who is artist in residence at Aspex Gallery PO1 3BF. There is a host of other good stuff so do look at the programme!

One World Week
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By happy chance One World Week is taking place at the same time as Journeys Festival and their programme can be downloaded at http://www.campaign.exchange/campaigns/one-world-week-2017-good-neighbours/. They too have a host of good stuff, with a faith based slant and more likely to be hosted in church halls than commercial venues. But good stuff - do check out their programme as well! 
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Stephen was elected as the Labour MP for Portsmouth South in June, taking the seat from Conservative Flick Drummond and the majority from the Conservatives in Parliament.

​We were delighted to welcome him to the drop-in on 28th September where he greeted a number of our clients and was photographed by many of them. Surprisingly, he came back the following Thursday to sit with a caseworker and see what sort of problems we tackle. I was not there myself but he was apparently visibly moved by what he heard. A good thing to see in an MP.
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In our hunt for accommodation for failed asylum seekers “not eligible for public funds” I recently took two on a trip to Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight. The monks were hospitable and wanted to know how they could help. Having consulted the two asylum seekers I suggested they might host one, the other not thinking he would fit in with a monastic lifestyle. We are still waiting to see what the Abbot thinks about this, and indeed what the asylum seeker will think if the Abbot agrees to host him.

One interesting thing which has come from this is advice from our Access to Justice team about accommodating failed asylum seekers. “[They don’t] have the right to rent and it will be illegal for them or the landlord to enter into a tenancy agreement. However, free board and lodging can be offered (or paid for by a third party, such as a charity). The address must be disclosed to Home Office or both will be in breach of their temporary admission conditions”.

In other words you can legally offer accommodation to a failed asylum seeker. Experience in Chichester seems to show that this works best when time scales are limited (two months with any one host, for example). 
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If anyone would be interested in hosting one of our clients for two months please get in touch with me. We would be strict about the two month rule however well the two of you get on. The scheme would be administered by the charity Refugee at Home.
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​We’ve recently been asked about donating clothes. These days we ask people to take clothes to the Red Cross Shop in Southsea: 41a Palmerstone Road, Southsea PO5 3QQ opposite John Lewis. They are the experts and can offer a better service than we do - so we give our clients vouchers to get what they need from there.
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We do keep stocks of nappies and toiletries at All Saints and these are much appreciated.

The Red Cross now has a cycle repair project and welcomes donations of cycles in whatever condition to be repaired and given to clients. 
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We would also welcome donations of good quality cycle locks as these are expensive items but very much needed. 
Any such donations (nappies/ toiletries/ babies clothes/ cycles/ cycle locks) should ideally be delivered during drop-in times - Monday and Thursday 10:00-12:30. The drop-in is at All Saints Church PO1 4BT

​We are interested in finding more volunteers and have recently modified the procedure. Please email me if you’re interested and copy to Susan Adeyemo: sueadey@aol.com
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Very best wishes to you all,

MICHAEL WOOLLEY
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Chairman, Friends Without Borders