A day in Manchester

10.00-11.00

Tom: Tom arrives in Rainbow Haven, a project mostly for refugees and asylum seekers. Some kids are messing around with Tom’s shoelaces while he sorts out a doctor’s appointment for an Iraqi refugee. Tom spends a while playing with the kids – he’s just a big baby at heart, but only the other children notice.

11.00-12.00

Sarah: The Welcome Centre rents a church hall for two days a week. I and 8 other volunteers get all of our equipment out of storage and set up the tables, chairs and information stalls. The Welcome Centre has a lot of volunteers. Most are asylum seekers living locally. They are not allowed to work. Some have been waiting to hear the outcome of their asylum applications for seven years or more. In both my placements I have noticed that the dividing line between volunteers, clients and staff is very thin – and owes a lot to chance and circumstance.

Aura: People are excited today – they were talking about the TV show where there was15 minutes of fame for Loaves & Fishes and for some of our clients. They showed our new kitchen and a millionaire who gave it to our drop-in centre. One and a half an hour I spend in a kitchen by serving tea, coffee and washing dishes.

Julia: I arrive to the Prison Visitors’ Centre before 10. It will be my first working day there because of all the police clearences, which needed two months to be done. I have some induction and read some leaflets about drug problems, the effects of drinking on unborn babies, and having a family member in prison. Nearly nothing is happening because in the mornings there are only legal visits

12.00-13.00

Julia: Lunch (a nice tuna and salad sandwich), and some socialisation: a volunteer has her 70^th birthday so we even have some chocolate cake, too.

13.00-14.00

Sarah: Visitors are wrapping shoeboxes in Christmas paper and filling them with gifts for children. Every child who visits the Centre in the week before Christmas will be given one of these boxes.

Julia: The gate has been opened for the family members. I sit at the reception desk with another volunteer and watch how the booking process is going on. When nobody is coming I write some new information into the Visitors’ Handbooks, and read the booklets about prison life.

14.00-15.00

Aura: There was one woman who quarrelled with another client. Helen calmed them down. It emerged that woman got angry because she was on a TV yesterday and none behaved with her like with a star. :)

We decided to sort donated clothes in a clothes store. There were some clients who wanted to buy some clothes.

Tom: Tom and a young refugee from Africa eat a late lunch and chat. They play a bit of basketball with  a refugee from Iran who also volunteers at the project. Tom is not good at basketball, and loses the game.

15.00-16.00

Sarah: A manicurist, masseuse and mendhi (henna hand painting) artist are at the Centre today and I am offered (and accept!) a neck massage and a henna painting on my left hand. I can’t bend my left hand until the henna dries so I go and help out in the café, making hot drinks for visitors. Some regular visitors, who I helped to enrol their children into a local school in previous weeks, arrive and I chat with them for a while to see how things are going.

Tom: Amanda (a staff member) and Tom talk with a woman from Somalia who has been given refugee status in the UK. She’s located her three missing children in Ethiopia, but the UK government has refused to re-unite the family. She is very upset, and doesn’t understand why the government can be so cruel…

16.00-17.00

Sarah: The Centre closes at 4.30 so I help clear up then catch the bus home. There have been 65 visitors today.

17.00-18.00

Julia: The others ask about the “prison” (which, in fact, I haven’t even seen), and seem to be a bit satisfied when I tell them that it was pretty boring. They all have had boring days already, unlike me.

Tom: Tom looks up a recipe for dinner, after seeing that nobody has been shopping and the random ingredients that we have are not going to make a “nutritious and tasty meal”. He settles on some new Indian food with lentils and rice, but out of compassion for Julia and Aura he will remove every trace of chilli or spice from it.

18.00-19.00

Sarah: I knit and pray. Not at the same time!

19.00-20.00

Julia: Dinner together. I like it. J Even the cleaning after makes some fun if it’s done together.

20.00-21.00

Sarah: Thursday evening is set aside for faith sharing. We sit down in the living room with a fresh pot of tea and our pudding. We only eat pudding on faith sharing days or when the community partners bring it. During sharing we each have an opportunity to tell the others what has been going on for us over the last week, how we have felt about things and whatever else seems appropriate at the time. This is one of my favourite things we do together. Although it can be hard, I find that it fills me with love and compassion for my community.

Julia: We have sharing tonight. It begins quite slowly, nobody wants to start but then we just come into practice, and talk about things we found good/bad/interesting etc. during the last weeks. I slowly realise my ‘complaining mood’ – the recognition doesn’t make me happy but at least helps to cope with it.

Tom: Faith sharing: the best part of the week! This is personal: I usually don’t know what I’m going to say until I open my mouth, and often I talk a lot more than the others because I ramble lots. It helps me to think, and it helps the others to get bored! I find it very frustrating when we hide our feelings in community (I am very much to blame), because it’s only on Thursday that I actually discover what someone was thinking on Monday! But for me, the sharing is a time of real community and communion: we can talk, share, break bread (or ice cream), and really connect.

21.00-22.00

Sarah: After talking we pull a question out of the box – these are discussion topics relevant to faith-sharing. Today the question is ‘What is the biggest obstacle in your relationship with God at the moment?

Aura: We end up with ‘Our Father’ and a hug when I had to tiptoe for taking as much comfort as I could from our hug.

Julia: I find the “question of the week” difficult but still want to speak – and shortly after it turns out that it was worth trying to answer. The others are really sympathising and it already makes me feel better.

22.00-23.00

Julia: Evening ritual: two or three of us are usually brushing their teeth at the same time. I like it.

Dr. Mintuet Menjeta by SIGITA BURBULYTE

A veterinary research scientist from Ethiopia, Minutet came to Liverpool in August 2000, to study a Masters Degree in the School of Tropical Medicine. At the time she had recently produced a report for the International Atomic Energy Agency into reproductive aspects of the Tsetse fly, was one of the highest paid academics in Ethiopia and had delivered her papers to International audience in Africa.
The civil unrest in her country made her fearful for her to return and in September 2001 she applied for Asylum, surrendering her passport to the Home Office. With her asylum claim pending, she also applied to the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) and her passport was transferred to this department. It is important to note that Minutet has been without National Asylum Support Service (NASS)’s help since 2003: effectively she is destitute.

From this point onward there has been a catalogue of mismanagement by the Home Office in all their dealings with Minutet. Her asylum claim was refused but notification was sent to the wrong address. Despite making this clear, notification of her hearing decision was again sent to the wrong address. NASS then withdrew her support without warning and despite numerous attempts by her solicitor and Refugee Action, there was no reply from NASS or Home Office.

In September 2003 her HSMP application was rejected, apparently due to insufficient evidence and, although her educational achievements received top marks, the work experience, salary and achievement in field of work, all received zero. In October 03, additional evidence was sent, and concerns raised about her passport, which had not been returned. The silence was deafening and a further four letters were sent following up the additional evidence.

In January 04, the additional documents were returned but with no mention of the case review, why the documents had been returned or why the passport was not with them. March 04 saw a letter from the HSMP apologising that another department had Minutet’s passport and that this would be returned in due course.

In April 04 a letter came from another Government department requesting her passport and accusing her of non-compliance, threatening the use of an enforcement team. Minutet then contacted a local MP to try to bring clarity to the situation. In May that year an apology was sent from the Deputy Chief Caseworker of Scotland, Northern Ireland, North West and Southern Regions, confirming 2 separate teams were working on the application and that this had caused confusion. They also referred to a refusal decision made in April, which Minutet had never received.

Another letter was received in May stating that Minutet was refused on the basis that she had entered the country illegally (clearly untrue as she had a valid visa in her passport to prove this) and that her HSMP marks were zero – the education section for which she had received full marks previously was now also zero.
This was a bleak time for Minutet as her solicitor now gave up her case. She was now destitute, without permission to work and with no passport, so she had no way to leave the country even if she wished to.

Minutet managed to find another solicitor and in June 05 the Immigration Minister replied to the MP apologising for the mistake. The Home Office continually refused to acknowledge that the case had been mishandled, but revealed that Minutet’s passport along with Home Office file, had been lost. It was suggested that she send all her documents and correspondence to the Ministerial Correspondence team in Manchester as a matter of priority for case review.

Despite the Ministers orders, the HSMP said the review was outside the 28 day review period and could not be accepted. Presumably this refers to September 03 when the original claim was rejected. However, once again with the help of the MP, the HSMP agreed to review.

Unsurprisingly the reply in September 05 upheld HSMP’s previous decision, starting that Minutet did not qualify, but still refused to explain why they had arrived at their decisions. In addition there are many mistakes in the refusal letter and she has documentation that shows this.

In January this year a further letter from HSMP was received, stating the application had been rejected on the basis of insufficient evidence and requested further evidence.

This was provided but due to an administration error, which the Home Office acknowledged, the evidence returned without being looked at. It was again sent back and delivery confirmed. Phone calls in April and May with a caseworker showed that the Home Office had again misplaced the file.

In June she received a letter stating she was liable for detention and further letters regurgitating the same flawed reasons for refusal. Minutet has never been given the reason why her salary, work experience and academic achievement have all been awarded zero marks in her HSMP application and her passport is still missing so she still cannot leave the country.

Minutet is destitute: she receives no government money and is not permitted to work. She has even been told she is not allowed to volunteer. She stays with friends and gets money and food where can. She is very well educated and dignified person, who has been crushed by the system and now takes regular medication for depression. In spite of this she still works as a volunteer on a Lung Cancer research programme with the University of Liverpool and at the Glox Neurological Centre. She also works on the allotment plot at Asylum Link and other plot-holders are surprised to find a research scientist tending the tomatoes in the patch next door. She has been waiting 5 years for a resolution to her situation and despite myriad admissions of incompetence by the Home Office, they steadfastly refuse to give either evidence or justification for their decisions, going back to the same tired answers on each occasion.

Sadly for Minutet, her skills as an academic are inevitably degrading as she slips further from her areas of study and her knowledge becomes dated. If you Google Menjeta Tse Tse you will find plenty of references to her papers. This is someone we should have been eager to welcome into our society and who would make a positive contribution to our scientific community. The worst resource you can waste is a human resource.

In December she was sent home…

Sigita volunteered at Asylum Link Merseyside in 2006-7.