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Time Together

Time Together is a mentoring scheme devised by national volunteering charity Timebank.

This project is co-ordinated in Manchester and Leicester by Refugee Action and offers refugees the chance to spend five hours a month with a mentor from the local community. They encourage, motivate and help their mentee with anything from writing a CV to practising their English, explaining how the internet works or enjoying a museum, gallery or football match.

Refugee and her mentor

Refugees often have a wealth of experience and expertise that are sometimes wasted. Venturing out into a new community and getting used to a totally new way of life can also be extremely daunting.

Time Together aims to help refugees integrate and give mentors the chance to make new friends, learn about other cultures and develop their own skills.

Mentors 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, which lasts for 12 months.

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 relationships with volunteers.

Gabriel Nkulu-Passy, a refugee from Congo-Brazaville who now lives in Salford, is a mentee about to begin his Time Together relationship with a mentor from Manchester.

“This opportunity is very important to me. It gives me the chance to get used to the British way of life. Often British people socialise together and Africans stick together, this project will allow us to learn about each other. It will help me with my English skills and to make a new friend."

“This project will also help British people to find out how we live in Africa and will help to get rid of certain bad ideas. It will help us understand that even though we come from different countries and have different coloured skin, we are all the same.”

Rosemary le Breton began mentoring as part of a Birmingham Time Together Project in 2004.

“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."

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