Our friends' lives in precarity

[Update from Maude & the rest of the volunteers]

The government has ordered the closure of the hotel where our friends were residing. This didn’t happen in an organised way. If it had done, we could have planned and assessed the situation and set up support networks focused on precise needs. Instead, volunteers and the residents were kept in the dark right up to 8am on Wednesday 29th November, shortly after which a coach arrived and everyone was ordered onto it. These are now housed in metal bunk beds, in dormitory-style rooms in a noisy, overcrowded hostel in London (400 residents and counting). Those who have Leave to Remain declined to board the coach, as they are in the middle of building their lives here.

The result is that we are now supporting a number of people who are homeless, during the coldest week this winter. We are also supporting a number in the hostel in London who are extremely vulnerable, and are in the middle of secondary health or mental-health care and deteriorating because of the lack of privacy and calm. We’re also supporting people who have been housed by the University of Sussex (thank you US) in order to complete their one-year courses, and who need basic utensils to cook in shared kitchens. They also need help with basic needs while they work their way through the labyrinthine immigration system to update their new status, at the same time as working for their exams.

This is why we have had to adapt this crowdfunder at 4th December 2023, in order to respond to the ever changing landscape affecting our friends' lives.

If you can, please could you help us reach our initial target, so that we can provide travel, kitchen equipment, and basic needs for all these dear friends?

The original crowdfunder...

In October 2022 a number of people arrived here in Brighton and Hove. Our new neighbours were fleeing life-threatening persecution in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Syria. Their lives at home have been turned upside down; their studies interrupted; their careers in farming, pharmacy, medicine, engineering; journalism; decorating, tailoring, design - abruptly brought to a close
• They’re managing their asylum applications on their own, without legal aid
• After six months, they were entitled to apply to courses to study English
• Six of them have been awarded scholarships to study English on the one-year pre-sessional ESOL course for refugees at the University of Sussex
• The others are being accepted on free courses at colleges all over the city
• They are all super-keen to become proficient in English, so that they can contribute to their community and to society
But there’s a few problems...
• University of Sussex refugee scholarship students are required to have lunch every day, so that they can study effectively. The University provides a nutritious lunch in the subsidised student restaurant for £2 each day of the 29-week course – that’s £10 per week x 29 weeks for each student
• All of our new neighbours need a waterproof backpack to safely hold their books and notes, and a waterproof jacket for the rain and wind of Brighton and Hove in winter
• But they have no money apart from the £9.10 per week subsistence allowance awarded to them by the Home Office
• They are not allowed to work

Here’s what we’re doing about it...

• We’re making this crowdfunder to try to raise £4960 for lunch, backpacks and waterproof jackets for 46 people to study this winter

Please join us!

Please help us raise the money to support the education of our wonderful friends and remove the stress of getting around Brighton and Hove on foot in the rain. Please donate whatever you can afford - and share this fundraiser far and wide!