WHY I
volunteer
Sarah Kiddle volunteers as a befriender for Sanctuary in Chichester,
*not their real names Icons from www.flaticon.com - Heart charity by Freepik
helping an asylum-seeking family to adjust to life in her home city I had always wanted to work with refugees. Watching the news it was hard not to be humbled and inspired by the widely reported refugee crisis, and the tragic stories of people perishing in their attempts to find a safe home. When a friend of mine said she was volunteering at Sanctuary in Chichester (SiC), I was excited that there was an opportunity to get involved in my own small city. SiC is committed to welcoming and supporting newly-arrived asylumseeking families and individuals, as well as refugee families. Often people arrive having lost everything and suffered great trauma. Yakub and Salima’s* family, for example, had already been through so much by the time they had fled the Syrian civil war. Yakub was imprisoned in terrible conditions for 11 years for refusing to betray his brother-in-law, who had protested against the Syrian leader, Assad. They became one of the first families supported by SiC when it started in 2016. As well as helping the family to integrate within the community, SiC helped Ahmed, their youngest son, to fund his medical studies in Cairo. He now works as a doctor in a UK hospital, giving back to the
community – as do his parents, who help other newly arrived families. As an English teacher, I could have been one of the charity’s tutors, who do vital work helping people to adjust and find work. However, I wanted to really get to know a family, so I became a befriender. This involves keeping in regular contact and helping out with everyday needs like navigating UK supermarkets, budgeting (although in my experience, they’re more savvy than me!), making and getting to appointments, and finding social opportunities like mother and baby groups – as well as building a rapport. Most of the refugees supported by SIC are here on the government’s resettlement schemes for Syrian and Afghan people and volunteers help them to rebuild their lives. For asylum-seeking families (such as the Kurdish family I support), things are a bit trickier because until they are granted asylum they cannot work. Others are vulnerable unaccompanied children, who have often travelled
alone for years through dangerous places before arriving here. SiC provides holistic care and this includes the Nations United football team it supported a young refugee to set up, which is made up of young refugees and asylum-seekers from countries including Sudan, Eritrea and Iran. A cricket team is now being developed after requests from Afghan arrivals and SiC is working on providing other holistic support that is more inclusive of girls, who are more at risk of trafficking in the UK. I love working with my current family and look forward to seeing them continue to flourish. With 65 million people forced to flee their homes in recent years, more than half of them children, SiC does vital work, and I’m proud to be a tiny piece of the support network they’ve created.
Providing sanctuary Sanctuary in Chichester is part of the wider City of Sanctuary movement, and offers a range of support to refugees and asylum seekers in the West Sussex city. sanctuaryinchichester.org
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