Freya Morgan
Story
Autumn updates coming soon early September!
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Hamza and I want to say thank you for all your incredible support over the last week. We have seen the donation total jump up and jump again, until on Wednesday when we smashed £20,000! Although Hamza was only able to run 84km before he became injured, he plans to return and finish off the full 200km in the future. My feet have now stopped swelling from the mega impact of 43 hours on my feet and I am itching to get running and finish off the remaining 1,023 kilometres.
The campaign has been extended until the end of 2023 to make sure we smash our £120,000 target. Watch this space for Human Disco Ball fundraising updates coming soon. Thank you again for everything you have done to show us you care about refugees, asylum seekers and people in detention.
Freya, Hamza, Elisa, Gina and the Bail for Immigration Detainees and Coopah's Refugee Running Club teams x
Distance: 1,647km of 2,500km
Runs: 157
Funds raised: £20,290
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On Monday 13th March 2023, the UK Parliament voted in favour of the Illegal Migration Bill. This Bill makes it illegal for anyone who travels here on small boats to ever exercise their international right to claim asylum.
In response, Freya ('The Human Disco Ball') and Aaron are working in partnership with Bail for Immigration Detainees to raise an emergency Solidarity Fund and provide a lifeline to refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. They are aiming to raise £120,000 by June 2023 to make sure that every asylum seeker has access to legal advice: https://www.biduk.org/articles/serious-concerns-about-the-quality-of-legal-advice-available-in-detention-centres
Since the Rwanda deportations began in 2022, the UK has seen the bleak reality of life in detention - the diphtheria outbreak at Manston detention centre, the tragic deaths of Hussein Haseed Ahmed and Frank Ospina, the 41 reported incidents of self-harm at Colnbrook detention centre, the 100% increase in suicidality, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder among people in detention, the two new detention sites at Campsfield and Hanslar and now the Illegal Migration Bill too. The UK was shocked to watch the Home Secretary at the Home Affairs Select Committee fail to explain how a refugee could seek asylum outside of the official Afghan, Ukranian and Syrian routes without traveling to the UK illegally. And now there is the possibility of asylum seekers being deported from the UK.
Despite the harm caused by immigration detention and the £12.7 million paid in compensation to people wrongfully detained last year, the Government now aims to open two new detention centres in 2023-2024. These harmful centres have led to 205 detainees of Brook House Detention Centre detainees (1/3 of Brook House's population) being placed under Rule 35 suicide watch.
Aaron and Freya, both bar students working in human rights, learned about the conditions in detention centres and wanted to do something to help. The two met when they were allocated as a team in the Garden Court Chambers Women’s Rights Moot 2021. They celebrated their win and became friends virtually through the covid-19 lockdown. This project emerged out of their shared passion for human rights, as well as their personal lived experiences and mutual commitment to helping people in detention centres in the UK.
Aaron and Freya are committed to supporting these vulnerable people. They will be raising £120,000 for Bail for Immigration Detainees through a year-long campaign that brings sports, charity and positive celebration together to show that there is a kinder and more effective way to integrate refugees and migrants in the UK. On 8th and 9th June 2023, Freya ran the 200 kilometre distance non-stop from Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol to Brook House Detention Centre near Gatwick with her refugee friend Hamza. Freya has also campaigned at Runthrough events, run disco warmups, hosted fun runs and competitions (Blue Monday Run, Race2Crate, Mental Health Awareness Week Prize Draw), raced at Manchester, Hackney and Bristol as the Human Disco Ball, become a Run Social ambassador and mentored members of the Refugee Running Club.
Aaron and Freya have more campaign events lined up for 2023. Check back here soon for more.
https://linktr.ee/humandiscoball
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Objectives:
1) Raise a £120,000 fund for Bail for Immigration Detainees to provide refugees and asylum seekers in the UK with legal protection.
2) To run in solidarity with those who have been wrongfully denied refugee status, detained, degraded and put at risk of suicide, and in memory of those who have already died by suicide.
3) Create a hopeful message around for the future of asylum seekers and refugees.
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Media:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-65203015
https://www.bigissue.com/news/activism/changemakers-2023-refugees-and-asylum/
https://www.biduk.org/articles/solidarity-fund
BBC Sounds (10:35:22 and 12:09:01): https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0fjp6p3
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Information about Bail for Immigration Detainees:
Bail for Immigration Detainees (‘BID) is an independent charity that exists to help people detained under immigration powers exercise their human rights. Their vision is of a world free of immigration detention, where people are not deprived of their liberty for immigration purposes or deported from the only home they know. To work towards this, BID provides free legal advice, information and representation to thousands of people held in detention across the UK while campaigning for an end to detention and unjust deportations,