Hi

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

For the past few months, I have been volunteering at Revive;an amazing charity supporting refugees and people who are seeking asylum in Greater Manchester.

Revive provides refugees with a wide range of support such
as free immigration advice, social support, volunteer programmes, AND
enrichment projects such as employability classes, ESOL, Wellbeing classes, allotment project, Women only group, advocacy and campaign group and more, making the process that much more accessible for its service users.

I chose to volunteer with the immigration advice team as
this is the area that interests me most. The majority of the cases I supported were family reunion cases and arranging legal travel documents.

I found that the lengths that people have to go to in order
to prove that they have 'suffered enough' to warrant being allowed to stay is honestly shocking. The endless questioning on the most personal and traumatic details of their lives and relationships would be dreadful for anyone to cope with, let alone someone whose first language isn't English.

One particular man I remember had worked in a school in Afghanistan. He was recruited by the British Government to gather intelligence on people who were becoming radicalised and, in return, he and his family would be given safe passage to the UK. This was not the case - word started to spread about what he was doing, causing people to become suspicious. The British Government, having placed him in this increasingly dangerous situation, did not fulfil their promise, and so he was forced to make the notoriously treacherous journey across the Mediterranean alone. Thankfully, as
one of the ‘lucky ones’, he was able to prove what had happened and was granted refugee status, however his family have not been able to join him, causing extreme distress to all concerned.

Another man I met was a young man from Eritrea, fleeing
civil war and forced military inscription. He had made his way here on a
traumatic journey for several months, and came to Revive looking for help to bring his wife here.

For the home office to approve the family reunion he had to
print out pages and pages of WhatsApp conversations detailing every
communication between him and his wife each month for a year. He was also expected to get these transcripts transcribed into English himself, which can be extremely costly. Additionally he had to produce a marriage certificate (not the kind of thing you remember to pack when you are fleeing a war torn country) and wedding photographs. After this, the decision to grant reunion is up to the discretion of the home office, with a very low rate of success.

Revive is an incredible charity that has changed the lives of so many and helps people to regain some of the dignity, friendship and most
importantly Human Rights that they are entitled to and deserve whilst going through unimaginable hardship. However funding for Revive is significantly lower than what would be sufficient, so please donate, whatever the amount, as it really does all make a difference.

Thanks for reading,

Cody xx

ALSO (FYI), the Holy Ghost Fathers is the parent organisation to Revive, so when you go to donate, the money will still be going directly to Revive :D 

Here is a link to Revive's website: http://www.revive-uk.org/ 

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.