The Welcome Project
Terry Winterton, who is Friend in Residence at the Glenthorne Centre in the Lake District, writes about a weekend project with refugees
Oxford University Press recently announced ‘Refugee’ as the ‘Children’s Word of the Year’ for 2016. They chose it because so many children had been using the word in their essays for a BBC Radio 2 competition. All of us have become familiar with news of refugees fleeing from war in Syria and pictures of many others crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in the hope of a new life.
Quakers have responded with help locally in various ways over the last year. One Quaker initiative in the Lake District, which has been running since 2008, has given relief to hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from over forty countries.
The project is centred in the Glenthorne Guest House and Conference Centre. It provides weekend respite breaks for asylum seekers and refugees dispersed to northern towns across England after their arrival in the UK.
Inspiration for the project came from the Glenthorne trustees and their belief that it would closely reflect the intentions of the original benefactors of Glenthorne – Linton and Sybil Taylor – who bequeathed the property to Yorkshire and Westmorland Quakers in 1961.
It is Friday evening and I am waiting at Windermere Station, in the South Lakes minibus, to pick up the next group. The groups usually arrive after a long train journey from places such as Bradford, Blackburn, Leeds or Sheffield. As I greet them they look quiet, reserved and a little apprehensive. I have a list of their names but that it is all I know. Before my first experience of a Welcome Project weekend, I wondered, also with some apprehension, what it would be like to host a weekend with a group of strangers from many different countries, each with their own cultures and languages, some are individuals, some are families with young children and teenagers.
Meeting for Worship
The weekend follows the usual pattern. I drive them to Glenthorne and they then settle into their rooms in time to come together for dinner with all the other guests at 7pm, when we share a few moments of Quaker silence before the meal. After dinner, we go to the lounge to wind down and get acclimatised. The next morning, after breakfast together, there is a short Meeting for Worship for those who want to attend. Then we set off in the minibus for Ambleside pier to take a boat trip on Lake Windermere.
We disembark at Bowness. Some go off to the shops (they are each given £10 pocket money for ice creams, coffee and refreshment), whilst I take others on an hour-long walk up to a local viewing point. Then we go back on the boat to Brockholes Visitor Centre, where we eat our packed lunches and the children play on the adventure playground. We then take the boat to Ambleside and move on to Glenthorne for afternoon tea and cakes at 4.30pm. After this there is free time, where the guests can either rest or play football or table tennis before dinner. After our meal, we get together for more games, or simply chat, and sometimes we share our stories, poems and the odd song or even dance. This is often a special time, since everyone has relaxed and started to open up to each other.
Waiting in limbo
This group is from the St Augustine’s Centre in Halifax. There are fifteen in the group, including Becky, a young befriender, who works at the refugee centre there; Mehdi and Sahar and their five-year-old daughter Helia, from Iran; Selma and her six-year-old daughter Ketan, from Sudan; Solomon, Mehratabe, Abdul and Hamid, four young men, and Raheb and Teblets, two young girls, all from Eritrea. The girls took six months to get here. They walked through the Sudan, part of the Sahara to Libya, crossing the Mediterranean by boat into Sicily, then up through Italy into France and across the English Channel in a truck.
There is Kumar, a man in his late twenties, who had fled from Trinidad for personal reasons, and Esfrahil, a forty-seven-year-old chef who left all his property and family in Iran because he was being targeted for political reasons. There is also Hussam, a sea captain, whose wife and three small children are stranded in Alexandria because it is too dangerous to return to their home in Yemen.
I have heard so many stories over these weekends. Some get refugee status and the ‘leave to remain’ quickly, others are here for many years, waiting in limbo. Others are refused – we don’t know what happens to most of them. Some go underground. This poem, written by an asylum seeker who visited us, gives some insight into how it feels to be an asylum seeker:
Arrived young and agile,
With dreams and ambitions
And families who had had hopes in us
All shattered
It is a life of no choice basis
Where it is a crime to touch money
Never able to work
No documents to do so
No choice of supermarket
The voucher comes with its own conditionalities
Thrives on Palfus used clothes
No choice of place to stay
Belongings remain packed for the next move
Anytime, anywhere, anyhow as the law commands or dictates.
- M Catula
On Sundays, after breakfast and Meeting for Worship, we often take a walk up to the waterfalls at nearby Easedale, or sometimes take a drive out to walk around the picturesque Tarn Hows, for a picnic lunch up in the hills. Then it is time to drive back to Windermere Station to say our goodbyes. We all have big hugs and smiles, and feel connected with each other, and grateful for time together in this beautiful place. I feel humbled and privileged to have been part of this and to have made many new friends.
‘Normal’ life
The numbers of asylum seekers reaching our islands continues to grow. The respite we are able to offer at Glenthorne gives a brief experience of a ‘normal’ life, some hope for the future and, perhaps most importantly, our goodwill. The money to fund this comes from Quaker Meetings and trust funds from around the country. This year we plan to host five weekends and for the first time a four day mid-week break during August.
Passy, from Huddersfield, wrote the following poem in April this year:
For the Welcome Project
You say you are not rich like Bill Gates
You say you are not from Obama’s family
You say you are not from QUEEN Royal’s family
You say you are ordinary people
But
We say you are rich forever
Your wealth is inside your heart
Your riches are the people you care for
Your wealth is the love you prove for asylum seekers
You’ll never be asylum seekers but you know our pains and sorrows
Really on earth still people who care for others
On earth still people who forget themselves for others
People who put in practice the great commandment of Jesus love
You are people who preach the gospel with action and not sweet word
You are people who put a smile on our faces again
You are people who will never be forgotten
We are asylum seekers
We are grateful
Further information: www.glenthorne.org
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