For Refugee Day, Mariam Yusuf, whose home is in our patch, helped co-ordinate a celebration in Manchester Central Library by Women Asylum Seekers Together – storytelling and poetry and singing and dances. She talked about this event in a conversation by Zoom.
Mariam
It was wonderful. The feedback we got was marvellous, amazing. We had probably about 80 or 90 in the audience, and maybe 15 performers plus the choir. The women themselves were inspirational. We’ve got a strong choir. It’s a diverse community – Africans, Arabs, Indians. The storytelling people shared about what home means. The song choice was very good. That one ‘Count on me’. When the singer came to Women Asylum Seekers Together, the atmosphere she found there was very welcoming, the women were welcoming. She could count on them.
Aidan Baker: Are there plans to put any of the performances online?
MY: Our website comms manager will do that.
(See WAST’s Facebook page)
AB: Is home for you still in Downham Market?
MY: Yes. Where I get my comfort is home. So Downham Market to me is home. It’s not as diverse as some, but I feel comfortable. I’ve built relationships because I’ve been there six years. I call it home. After this interview, I will head to our Manchester drop-in, and get my train home later in the day.
AB: What’s your most important message at the moment?
MY: One woman has made England her home but her case has been refused because of the Home Office culture of disbelief. She’s a Christian, a church minister back home. She came to the UK to evangelise. Then something happened at home, and she couldn’t go back. But the Home Office doesn’t believe her. That’s really demoralised her as a Christian, that somebody says she’s lying. She’s very useful to the other asylum-seeking women because she does a bit of counselling. She says the Home Office does not want her to be here. They have not settled her case. But she feels this is home with how she’s supporting the women and herself.
Meanwhile, in East Anglia…
Mariam’s adoptive home region had its own celebrations of Refugee Week too.
- Cambridge‘s Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement hosted an academic conference on World Refugee Day itself, and a community arts festival on Saturday 22 June
- Bedford slightly stretched Refugee Week, starting it on 14 June, and a highlight was Bern O’Donoghue’s participatory art installation, DeadReckoning, in St Paul’s church,18-22 June
- Colchester‘s Mercury Theatre and Refugee, Asylum Seeker and Migrant Action (RAMA) presented storytime events for children in libraries in Colchester, Clacton and Harlow
- Norwich easily beat Bedford’s stretch with a Refugee Week of three weeks,10-30 June; a highlight was the performance I will heal based on Norwich City of Sanctuary health group’s research
And a consolation for missing the events is this. Hitchin seems to have missed the week, too, but you can still get to the Herts Welcomes Refugees presentation in the Hitchin Festival (19:30, Weds 3 July, Quaker Meeting House, 1 Paynes Park, Hitchin SG5 1EH).
