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Refugee Mentoring Scheme Comes To Bolton – Volunteer Mentors Needed!
7 January 2005
Mentors are needed to offer help and friendship to vulnerable refugees who have come to the UK under a United Nations international resettlement programme.
They will work within the mentoring scheme Time Together, developed by national volunteering charity Timebank, which will be launched in Bolton this March.
Time Together offers refugees the chance to spend five hours a month with a mentor from the local community who will help them with anything from writing a CV to practising their English, explaining how the internet works or enjoying a museum, gallery or football match.
The project, which was launched in Manchester last autumn, aims to help refugees integrate, while giving mentors - who come from all walks of life - the chance to make new friends, learn about other cultures and develop their own skills.
Time Together is being co-ordinated in the region by Refugee Action, an independent, national charity working to enable refugees to build new lives in the UK.
The Bolton project will be aimed at a small number of refugees who have come to the town under the UK’s Gateway resettlement programme, which offers protection to some of the world’s most vulnerable refugees. A small team of resettlement workers from Refugee Action are working with the refugees during their first 12 months in the UK.
Sarah Arnold, Time Together project manager, says: “Refugees are people who are forced to flee their homes due to a real threat of persecution. When they arrive in Britain the majority bring with them a wealth of skills, talent and experience that is unfortunately often wasted.
“85% of refugees hold qualifications and the refugees on the scheme are exceptionally motivated and determined to put something back into the communities that have welcomed them. The majority are professionals - doctors, lawyers, accountants and nurses - who just need a little bit of support and encouragement to realise their ambitions.”
Sara Buck, Refugee Action’s Gateway Project Manager, said: “The refugees we are working with are from war-torn Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many desperately want to make new friends in their local communities, use their skills and start rebuilding their lives. I would encourage local people to come forward to become a mentor – they will find mentoring an extremely rewarding experience.”
Mentors encourage and motivate their mentee to achieve their goals in education, language and employment. They attend a one-day training course, are actively involved in selecting a suitable match and receive support and expenses for the duration of their mentoring relationship.
Since Time Together was first launched nearly two years ago in London, Birmingham and Glasgow more than 350 refugees have benefited from one-to-one mentoring relationships with volunteers.
Rosemary le Breton began mentoring in 2004. She says:
“Time Together has been a real eye-opener. My mentee, Abdul, is everything the press rarely acknowledge: hardworking, motivated and willing to learn. I’ve been able to help Abdul settle in Birmingham by introducing him to everyday life in the city, as well as helping him with more pressing issues such as writing his CV and filling-in forms.
“Working with Abdul has encouraged me to think about my career, so much so that I've started a part-time graduate diploma in law and am thinking about going into immigration law in the future. It'll be a big leap for me, but for once I feel as though I may be on the right track. I'm very glad that I started doing voluntary work - it's opened up new opportunities for me.”
For more information on becoming a mentor, please contact: Sophie King, Refugee Action’s Time Together Project co-ordinator, on 0161 233 1437.
For further information, please contact: Julia Ravenscroft, Press Officer at Refugee Action, on 0161 233 1956 or at juliar@refugee-action.org.uk.
Notes to editors
Information on refugees and asylum seekers
Under the terms laid out in the 1951 United Nations Convention a refugee is defined as someone who ‘has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion; is outside the country they belong to or normally reside in, and is unable or unwilling to return home for fear of persecution.’
The Convention was drafted in the context of the millions of refugees in post-war Europe, and only applied to European nationals. In 1967, a UN protocol extended the convention to cover any person, anywhere in the world, at any time. The UK, along with over 130 other countries, is a signatory to the Convention and its protocol. These two documents remain the foundation of refugee law today, committing signatories to certain obligations. However the interpretation of these international instruments varies from country to country.
What is asylum?
If a person is recognised as having refugee status it means he is given protection by the UK authorities and he will not be sent back to the country from which he fled. Since October 2000 there has been another form of protection against removal available in the UK through the Human Rights Act. This Act forbids the UK authorities from breaching a person's fundamental human rights. If a person can show that to return him to the country from which he fled would breach one of his fundamental human rights, he will be offered protection from removal in the UK. Alternatively, a person can be offered temporary leave to remain in the country, usually for a period of between 2 to 4 years. This is either Humanitarian Protection or discretionary leave to remain.
Where do most refugees to the UK come from?
The top 5 asylum seeking countries in the UK are currently Iran, followed by China, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Iraq.
About timebank
TimeBank’s Time Together initiative is funded by the European Refugee Fund.
TimeBank is a national campaign inspiring and connecting people to share and give time. Contact 0845 601 4008.
About Refugee Action
Refugee Action is an independent, national charity working to enable refugees to build new lives in the UK. We provide practical advice and assistance for newly arrived asylum seekers and long-term commitment to their settlement through community development work, and received 30,000 visits from asylum seekers last year. As one of the country’s leading agencies in the field, Refugee Action has 22 years’ experience in pioneering innovative work in partnership with refugees.
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