Refugee Week – Day Two

June 21, 2017

Day Two

Yes, I know I am posting this on day three, but it was a very late night last night!

The day, for GARAS, started with preparing for an Audit. This was requested by OISC, the Office of Immigration Services Commission, the body that allows us to practice at Level One in Asylum and in Immigration Law. It was 15 years since we had last been visited by them, so, despite regular inspections by other bodies, we weren’t really sure what the process would be. I am delighted to say it went very well.
During his visit I went over to see the lovely people at St James Church, Tredworth. This is sort of our parish church and have been firm and reliable supporters since we began. On World Refugee Day, it was a delight to talk together and to answer their questions.

The day ended at Gloucester Guildhall, at the Black Men on the Couch event. This event, supported by UKCP, which has been promoting talking therapy for a number of years now, took a different twist last night as both of the "clients" in the the chair were refugees. Their stories were so very different. The one story of the long and challenging existence of someone managing to thrive despite years and years in Dadaab Refugee Camp and the other, the short, shocking story of being accidentally caught up in the terrible violence as civil war broke out in Libya.

On World Refugee Day it was vital to hear again such experiences and remember how these have long, long impacts, even when life may return to "normality", the truth is it is never the same again.