Glenthorne Quakers support refugees
'This group of young men/boys from Afghanistan loved this view across Windermere toward the end of the day in February!'
A Quaker-supported project providing short respite breaks for asylum seekers and refugees continues to grow.
Terry Winterton, the Friend-in-residence at the Quaker Glenthorne Guest House and Conference Centre in Grasmere, told the Friend: ‘I have had verbal comments from different churches in Cumbria that the Welcome Project is highly regarded and also from Friends around the country that it is more well-known and considered important amongst Quakers.’
Since the pilot project started in 2008, 850 men, women and children refugees, asylum seekers and befrienders from fifty-eight countries have benefited from a respite break at Glenthorne. The project was started by Glenthorne trustees to provide short respite holidays to groups of asylum seekers, refugees and those made destitute when their asylum claim fails.
Writing in the Glenthorne newsletter, Terry Winterton says: ‘Our Welcome Project for asylum seekers and refugees has become even more well regarded and important as part of our charitable work. This group of young men/boys from Afghanistan loved this view across Windermere toward the end of the day in February! The group of boys, aged between 16-18 years old, were part of a weekend organised in conjunction with Bradford and Leeds Children’s Society and the Wordsworth Trust. We have five more Welcome Project visits planned this year.’
According to Terry Winterton, the Welcome Project has developed a good relationship with the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere and organised visits of a more educational nature with them and the Bradford and Leeds Children’s Society including the latest visit from 13 to 15 February.
‘We had a visit and tour of Dove Cottage [the home of poet William Wordsworth] and spent several hours with Jeff Cowton, the curator at the museum, allowing the lads to handle some two-hundred-year-old books and listen to an Aeolian harp! They also dressed up in some period costumes which they loved! They were asked to choose a sentence from some of Wordsworth’s poems – like “Let nature be your teacher” and “We are all of one human heart”. The messages went deep.
‘On Saturday we took them on the usual boat trip on Windermere and, in the evening after dinner, went for a nighttime walk to look at the stars!’
At the end of the weekend, the participants offered feedback, with one saying that it had given him ‘some new goals for his life… people could be nice to each other, without asking for anything in return’, and that joining in ‘made for a better life of enjoyment and connection’.
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