Refugee Voices Scotland

Ngqabutho Mpofu is a DJ, an actor, chairman of Ignite Theatre Company, the founder of Jaiva and a lot more. In this podcast recorded in front of an audience, he tells us how he got into DJ-ing and Acting, about a beautiful moment on a roadside with two policemen and the big influences on his life so far. Join us for another show recorded in front of a live audience in the Refuweegee shop in Byres Road Glasgow. This show was produced in collaboration with the Universit of Glasgow UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts (RILA). -0- Transcript Kenneth Gordon  0:00  Hello, I’m Ken Gordon. Welcome to the Refugee Voices Scotland Podcast produced in association with the University of Glasgow, UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts (RILA). Welcome again to the Refuweegee shop in Byres Road in Glasgow for another lunchtime interview. Please be aware that at around 21 minutes in, there is what has become a regular feature in these podcasts, the sound of an emergency services vehicle going past, find out how to join us and be in our audience at the end. Kenneth Gordon Ngqabutho nja njab…. Ngqabutho Mpofu Its the click Kenneth Gordon  I know … what I was trying to say is that you’re a DJ, an actor, chairman of Ignite Theatre, the founder of Jaiva. Yeah, plus, you’ve been an entrepreneur in your past. Ngqabutho Mpofu  0:52   Yeah. Kenneth Gordon  0:52   Okay. What’s on your mind Ngqabutho Mpofu  0:56   A lot of things, a lot of things The most recent thing was me getting pissed off at my playlist playing a high BPM (Beats Per Minute) Afro-house when I’m driving to a podcast, so I wanted to listen to more jazz, Ethiopian jazz and the whole 15 minutes of my journey. I was listening to 125 BPM. So that was interesting and really annoying. But I got to listen to something soft walking down. Kenneth Gordon  1:28   That’s cool. Very nice. How did you get into DJing and acting? Ngqabutho Mpofu  1:33   I got into acting first when I moved to Glasgow, and that was literally by mistake. I went to church, Wellington Church, which is literally up the road from here, and I’m not religious, or anything but then I went because of my Mum. I got into acting first when I moved to Glasgow, and that was literally by mistake. I went to church, Wellington Church, which is literally up the road from here, and I'm not religious, or anything but then I went because of my Mum.…Click To Tweet I had just moved and it was something to do on a Sunday morning. So I went to church and then I met a lovely lady.

I want people who listen to me not to think of me as a poor lady that you need to feel sad about. No please think of me as a strong lady because I'm proud of myself. … But don't feel pity. Just think of me as a strong lady. Click To Tweet Nihaya Jaber is a PhD student at the University of Glasgow. She is also an intern for the Palestinian Arabic online project. This is a third-generation Palestinian refugee story. She is Palestinian, from Gaza. In this podcast, she talks about life in one of the most populated refugee camps in Gaza, how she experienced reverse culture shock and refugee anger. This podcast is the first in a series of monthly lunchtime live recordings in the Refuweegee shop in Byres Road in Glasgow. Check our twitter to find out when the next one is and join our audience! Please be aware that if you are affected by the sound of emergency services vehicles this podcast might be uncomfortable.  The stage is set, microphones switched on, we have settled into our comfy chairs and our audience is waiting. -0- Transcript K:  Could you make a noise just so we know you’re there?  I’m Ken Gordon, I run the Refugees Voices Scotland podcast, it’s a personal project of mine and we’ve been running for two years now.  If you’re subscribers and you’ve listened to it before – thanks, it’s really cool to meet people who’ve actually listened to it. So, this is a co-production between Refugee Voices Scotland and University of Glasgow UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Language in the Arts, and Refuweegee for the wonderful facilities! Hi, Nihaya Jaber – how are you? N: I’m good, how are you doing. K: It’s very nice to meet you – you’re a PhD student at the University of Glasgow.  You’re also an intern for the Palestinian Arabic online project.  Nihaya, the one thing we always do on this podcast is to ask people what is on their mind.  What’s on your mind today, in 100 Byres Road, the Refuweegee shop? N: Well the first thing on my mind is that I’m happy it’s sunny today, unlike yesterday.  And the second thing that’s on my mind is since we’re talking about refugees, is that I’ll tell you a little bit of history. K: Thank you, that would be nice. N: So I’m Palestinian, from Gaza, and I’m not sure if people know about the whole Palestinian-Israeli conflict but it started in 1948. Israel created their state, and they had to expel people from their villages. By people, I mean Palestinians who were living there for a long time. And as they expelled those people, those people started to move to other areas and eventually, they became refugees.   So I’m a refugee in one of the most populated refugee camps in Gaza. My parents are refugees, my grandparents are refugees. So it’s like three generations of refugees. You can tell how many years we’ve been refugees. The UN help those refugees get the main basics for their lives first, with my grandparents. You know, they gave them tents and then people started to build their ow...

Nevis Ensemble in Refuweegee 100 Byres Road Glasgow This podcast was recorded on a wet and cold December Sunday at the Refuweegee shop in 100 Byres Road in Glasgow. Refuweegee held a social event for the public and volunteers. It featured a performance from the Nevis Ensemble. Interviewing Selina Hayles, the founder of Refuweegee is an annual event for us. Selina was our first podcast subject. We spoke to again Selina last year. It is lovely to witness the growth and creative energy that is refuweegee. In this podcast, you will hear in order of appearance: Oudai Tozan, Lori Sullivan, Fliss Keefe, Jamie Munn, Jon Hargreaves (the Nevis Ensemble Conductors), Andrea Baker (Opera Singer), the incredible Nevis Ensemble and the very latest news from the founder of refuweegee Selina Hayles. Words and recordings cannot capture the effect the Nevis Ensemble have on their audience. Sign up to their newsletter. Go and see them and feel the full force of their talent, spirit and joyous energy. -0- Transcript K: Hello from a wet and cold December Sunday in Byres Road in Glasgow. Tonight refuweegee are holding a social event in their shop at number 100 Byres Road and I’m looking forward to interviewing Selina for the latest on what they’ve been doing since we spoke to them about a year ago. Tonight’s event is going to be attended by volunteers, all sorts of people and it features a performance from the Nevis ensemble who has just pulled up in their coach. Let’s go inside and see what’s happening. And we have the Nevis Ensvble joining us as they file in with their musicals instruments and music stands and we are moving the furniture to one side. They’re going to play us a little concert. Oudai Tozan And here’s an old friend of the podcast Oudai Ozan. Hi Oudai! O: Hi, glad to see you again and chat again. K: It’s been super to catch up with you over the last couple of years since we spoke. What’s new with you? What’s on your mind today Oudai? O: What’s on my mind? A lot of things on my mind. One of them is as I start to enjoy today’s great event, this is a start and work, volunteering, sports, friends. This is life recently.  K: You are looking very well. O: Yes I am, thankfully. I’m enjoying my time. Enjoying everything but the weather today is a little bit difficult, so other than the weather, yes, everything is is great. K: I should say for the listeners that Oudai has got the most spectacular scarf I have seen for quite a while.  O: Do you think so? A lot of people said this but if you are insinuating that you want it, then I’m sorry.  K: lovely to see you again.

Welcome! Welcome to the Refugee Voices Scotland podcast. This episode features The Welcoming Association in  Edinburgh whose mission is to “Welcome newcomers, build community and learn together”. I spoke to Adil Ibrahim who is a Senior Community Development Practitioner to learn about the range of services they provide.  -0- Transcript Welcome to the Refugee voices Scotland podcast my name is Ken Gordon. Today we’re in a magnificently echoey place with Adil Ibrahim who is a community development practitioner at the Welcoming Association, hello Adil. A: Hello K: It’s a beautiful day, it has been sunny and raining every 5 or 10 minutes. Scottish. A: Typically Scottish K: Adil, can you tell me something about the Welcoming Association because it is a very Edinburgh-centric organisation A: It is Edinburg-centric. It is a grassroots organisation, established in the early 2000s. The main thing that we do here at The Welcoming is to provide English language classes at different levels.  We have the beginners classes, pre-intermediate, intermediate, advanced – in addition to that, we run a conversation cafe every Friday. People come to us from different countries – over 60 different nationalities come to The Welcoming, and we attract over 1300 people annually to come here and learn English. So that’s our main operation and has been like that for a long time.  On top of that, we run other projects. For example, the project I’m working on is called the Welcoming a Greener Future project which is funded by CCF,  the Climate Challenge Fund from the Scottish government. It is administered by Keeping Scotland Beautiful. We have been in receipt of that funding for the last 5 years and we’re very grateful to our funders because that money is allowing us to do magnificent work in the community, to raise awareness about climate change and to encourage people to take action to tackle climate change. K: Ok before we talk about that, coming back to the English, how many people part in the classes? A: We run 17 different classes a week and on average it is about 20 people in each class. So annually as I said earlier, about 1300 people come to our classes. K:  60 countries A: From over 60 countries. Mainly Europeans. We did research recently and Italians and Spanish are the majority of our participants. However, a couple of years ago we started to engage with the Syrian refugees through the City of Edinburgh Council’s Syrian resettlement programme.  We are partners in that Programme, and therefore we do work with a lot of Syrians. They are coming here to learn English or enjoying other activities to help them integrate into the community. So we have you been in the fortunate position to be partners in that work. K: is it quite a mixed group? Is it both male and female? A: It’s male and female. Over eighteen. We don’t work with children at the moment although we are looking into that. But so far we work with adults 18 plus. K: How long do the courses last for English? Does it continue for years? A: It is drop-in. Drop-in classes. So people can come for a month or two months or six months, so it’s very very flexible. Unlike colleges, we are not fixed with a specific course that you need to complete to the end. So it’s the drop-in nature that actually attracts people to us. People don’t feel obliged to stick to a course because as you know people,

This podcast was recorded on a wet and cold December Sunday at the Refuweegee shop in 100 Byres Road in Glasgow. Refuweegee held a social event for the public and volunteers. It featured a performance from the Nevis Ensemble.

This episode features The Welcoming Association in Edinburgh whose mission is to “Welcome newcomers, build community and learn together”.

cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Thomas Nugent – geograph.org.uk/p/4875881 Scottish Detainee Visitors is a Scottish Charity that supports people detained by the immigration service in Scotland. Through its work and projects, it also influences government policy on detention. If you have listened to our previous shows, you will know that the UK is the only country in Europe that routinely detains people indefinitely. People in detention cannot leave, they live in prison-like conditions within the detention centres. The majority of people detained are eventually released, but many never really recover from the trauma. Scottish Detainee Visitors have visited over a thousand people offering support, understanding and a life-line to the outside world. In addition to their visiting, they have a range of services and projects. They are looking for volunteers, so check out their website at www.sdv.org.uk . This podcast was recorded on the 24th of May 2019. I spoke to director Kate Alexander in their Glasgow office. I asked her last week for an update and I added that to the end of the episode. NOTE: The Liberty petition that Kate refers to in the podcast is now closed. Liberty provides details on how to contact your MP here . -0- Transcript Ken: I’m here with Kate Alexander who is a Director of Scottish Detainee Visitors.  Kate, hi! Kate: Hi  Ken: We’re high above the streets of Glasgow ff anyone is wondering what the background noise is. And if the emergency services approach, it’s nothing to do with us! Kate, when did Scottish Detainee Visitors start?  Kate: Well, it started as a project within the Scottish Refugee Council when Dungavel first opened as a detention centre in 2001. This was before my time. But I believe that one of the community development workers set up a visiting scheme to the people who were held in Dungavel and ran it as a project within SRC for a while. Then a year later in 2002, we constituted as a separate organisation. It has been running as a separate charity since 2002, and for the entire time that Dungavel has been detaining people. Ken: How many visitors do you have on the roll?   Kate: We have 25-30 at any one time, sometimes a few more sometimes a few less.  It waxes and wanes a little through the year. We have a lot of students who are visitors so sometimes in the summer they drift off. But it doesn’t prevent us from managing to run two visits every week to Dungavel.  Ken: And just as a bit of a spoiler to the end of this podcast, if people want to be a visitor –visit your website?  Kate: Visit our website. We recruit visitors two or three times a year, and all the information is there on the website and we announce it on social media as well.   Ken: Ok, we’ll give the website out at the end.  What is involved in visiting?   Kate: Well, Dungavel for people who have never been there, is way out in the countryside. It’s 6 miles south of Straven, in the middle of nowhere. If you didn’t know it was there you wouldn’t see it as you passed on the road. There’s no bus route there.

Micheal and Pheona Matovu This podcast features Radiant and Brighter. Radiant and Brighter is an organisation set up by Pheona and Micheal Matovu. They were not refugees or asylum seekers and therefore, did not qualify for any support. They experienced destitution and though their experiences developed Radiant and Brighter which is a Community Interest Company. That aims to bridge the gap between the needs of the growing BAME, refugee and migrant communities. It has been a few months since I met them wearing my brightest shirt. And I did promise a picture. -0- Transcript K:  I’m here with Micheal and Pheona Matovu from radiant and brighter.  Hello, good morning! M: Good morning, how are we today?  K: I’m good, how are we?   M:  We are radiant and brighter. P: I see you’re wearing a radiant and brighter shirt, what can we say? K: I’m wearing my radiant and brightest clothes today – we’ll need to get a photograph of that! Micheal and Pheona, thanks so much for inviting me along to talk about what you do at Radiant and Brighter.  When did it start and why did it start? P: Thank you for coming to speak with us.  Radiant and Brighter really started in 2012, but it was incorporated as a community interest company in 2014.  We started because we had been through an experience where we couldn’t work due to immigration controls. Those five years were a challenge –  very difficult, very challenging circumstances. But those five years allowed us to think about what we were going through, and what others might be going through.  Prior to that, I had been in the UK for ten years. Micheal had been in the UK for over five years. Everything was fine, we thought we were doing well. Our credit was good. We bought a house. It was all good until we got refused residence in the UK in 2007.  We were refused a number of times. Then we appealed. We went through a number of processes then eventually started a fresh application. They didn’t say “you can now stay in the country” for a good part of five years until 2012.   That was difficult because obviously we were not allowed to work. We were not allowed to claim benefits. We were not allowed to do anything that would remotely allow us to have a life where we could have food and a roof over our heads.  So family and friends had to step in. Now Micheal will tell you about the volunteering that we did, but the challenge at that time was so great. We didn’t know that it was even going to be greater when we got permanent residence in 2012.  Click To Tweet And we thought ‘yay! We can now work and it’s going to be brilliant!’ You know, poverty is behind us and it’s all going to be fine. And no, it didn’t work like that. Because when we started to look for work, we were not finding work. We were being told that “You don’t have experience”.  We were being put back because some of the employers would not accept our experience from previous work. Or indeed the volunteering that we had done.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash Hello and welcome to the refugee voices Scotland podcast, my name is Ken Gordon. This episode features Lyndsay McDade. Mum and a refugee volunteer many times over, particularly in camps in France. She also has a lot of knowledge and experience of how our system deals with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and has direct experience of the asylum processes by looking after a young person going through the asylum process. Lyndsay has a strong message for us all. Stay tuned to the end for some news! -0- Transcript K: I’m here with Lyndsay McDade, hello Lynsey! L: Hello, Ken.  K: Lyndsay, we caught up because I thanked you for following our Refugee Voices Scotland Twitter. I think this is a lesson that when someone starts to follow you, you should thank them for it?   L: Definitely, and it was really unusual because normally you don’t get a message like that, you stood out! K: Oh, great! All listeners – if you want people to follow you then get in touch – thank them, be kind.  Lyndsay, you got in touch and said you have quite a lot of experience around the refugee world if you like, with refugees in Dunkirk and this is why we’re here. You’ve agreed to have a wee chat about it.   L: Yes, well we were talking on Twitter and talking afterwards about how volunteers, and people working in particular with young asylum seekers and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, it’s such a small world and everything is so interconnected.  What happens when you volunteer in France quite often comes back to Scotland, and comes back to your life outwith France as well.   K: So how did you start? Where did it all start for you? L: I’m a Mum, I’ve got two little girls.  And in 2015-ish, I kept watching all the things on the news and I kept seeing pictures.  And I kept thinking to myself – if I was in that position, God I’d really want someone to help me, there needs to be support there. If I was putting my children on those horrible, rubber dinghies and getting to safety in whatever way I possibly could, even if that was so dangerous in itself, then I would really hope someone was there at the other end.  To support me, to help provide me with what I need, to help me get on my feet, to be independent and empowered, and to be able to live my life in safety.   So after lots of talking about it (it took a while!), and working with some asylum groups in Glasgow and in Scotland doing bits and bobs, I decided to go to France.  So I went into the camps in Dunkirk first. It was only supposed to be for a couple of days! But then it wasn’t just a couple of days, and then I went back home, and I went back again. And that was the sort of running themes of things.  I had to go back again, and again, and again. Because it’s a funny place, Dunkirk – I don’t know whether it’s the same for all refugee camps, whilst you’re seeing the absolute worst of despair, trauma and difficulties – you also see the sheer resilience of the young people in my case, but the people that you’re helping and you’re supporting.  It’s that sort of blend of complete despair versus utter resilience that’s just fascinating and...

Welcome to our very first podcast recorded in front of an audience at a festival!  We were delighted to be asked to join the University of Glasgow UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts at the Solas Festival in beautiful Perthshire.  And the weather was really good, which it always is in (cough) Scotland. It certainly made the camping experience better although midgies did make themselves known. This podcast features two artists. Fawaz Raif is a Syrian actor who after acting for one year, is in a show called The Trojans. The Trojans is a new adaptation of Euripides’ Trojan Women performed by Syrian Refugees. It will be touring the UK including performances at the Edinburgh Festival. He will soon film a movie called “The Hipples”. For a person who has been acting for one year. He’s doing very well! And of his first love football?  Listen and find out more.  Farzane Zamen is an Iranian musician, producer, and songwriter. She released albums and singles in Persian as well as English. She has won awards and she has spent a lot of time in Glasgow writing and recording her songs, thanks to Glad Cafe and Green Door Studios. Hear Farzane Zamen’s new release Bavar de Farda playing in the link above. Go and see her play on 23rd July 2019 in the Old Hairdressers in Glasgow. Huge thanks to the University of Glasgow UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts. Particularly to Bella for organising everything for us, including a tent and a sleeping mat! Without her, this podcast would not be possible. We had so much fun recording a live show that we decided to do this again. Follow our facebook page and twitter feed. Then you will find out when and where you can join us and be in the audience. Stewart Roxburgh, for your continued support and natty jingles. Find Stewart’s excellent radio work on mixcloud . Did you notice our new jingle? Huge thanks to Stewart Roxburgh, for his genius work, use of his studio and natty jingles. Find Stewart’s excellent radio work on mixcloud . Are you a refugee or an asylum seeker who has something on your mind? Do you run a refugee or asylum seeker support project and want to tell us about it? Contact us on refugeevoicesscotland@gmail.com, on twitter @refvoicesscot and on our facebook group. Don’t miss an episode by subscribing to our podcast here.  Links to people and places mentioned in this podcast Z Bent on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/z-bent/1352297237 Farzane Zamen on Sound Cloud  www.soundcloud.

Tilly the cat A few episodes ago we spoke to Amal Azzudin, one of the Glasgow girls. She recommended speaking to ”the legend “ Mr Girvan featured in the Glasgow Girls story. A teacher in Drumchapel High at the time a large number of refugee and asylum seekers and their children arrived in Glasgow. He talks about the challenges the teachers and school faced at the time, the unexpected consequences on the communities of Scotstoun and Drumchapel and the continuing challenges faced in communities across the UK. -0- Transcript K: I’m here with Mr Girvan E: Or Euan. K: It’s so nice to meet you at last. I have read a lot about you. Heard a lot about you. Seen actors “be” you. Documentary footage from 2015 times. As a part of the Glasgow Girls story and more, you were a bilingual support teacher. Oh and I should say what’s the name of the cat? E: Tilly. Tilly the cat. K: If you hear jingle bells in the background Tilly the cat is with us. I love it when we have got lots of different things in our podcasts. Euan, you were a bilingual support teacher at Drumchapel High. How many schools have you worked at? E: Too many in the West of Scotland. I started off in Cranhill, North Kelvinside, Knightswood, St Thomas Aquinas and Drumchapel of course and finished up at Notre Dame School for Girls, up the road there. So I experienced a lot of Glasgow schools and I’ve always lived close to the schools because I’ve always thought that’s important. I’ve always felt you need to be part of the area. A lot of teachers don’t feel that. They feel as though they need to be away and they need their lives to be private. I can understand that. But I’ve always felt that you had to be within the area that you were working in. I think it helped. Unlike Tilly who probably now does want to get out. (sound of jingle bells). K: She does want to get out. Shall we pause? E: Pause K: So Tilly’s been let out the door. In your time as at Drumchapel High, you were obviously a significant part of the Glasgow Girls story. E: As were a number of my colleagues. It just so happened that in the presentation of the plays and so on, it whittled down to me being the teacher who was involved. But there were plenty of other very committed teachers who provided support in what was a very difficult initial situation. When the school received a number of refugees from totally different backgrounds, totally different areas and totally different levels of poverty, education, having experienced different types of trauma. Especially war trauma. And the idea was that because Drumchapel’s numbers were going down, then the children would be bussed there from Scotstoun. So instead of those children going to St. Thomas Aquinas in Knightswood, they were bussed to Drumchapel. That created a whole number of other issues. Because as you know Glasgow at that time, less so now, had gang areas over which you would not go. And these refugee kids traversed that. And so that was one of the very positive outcomes of bussing kids to a school that was a number of miles away from where they stayed. It did cause a number of issues for us as teachers then because we argued that these children should be going, especially the primary children coming up, should be going to schools in the local area. So we actually argued ourselves out of a job in Drumchapel. Because eventually what happened was, children either went to Knightswood or to Scotstoun from primary school. So those were refugee children who were with their peers and had grown up with their peers in primary school. And off they went. So that was a good and an interesting outcome. Not one that I was personally happy about, because then I got trundled off to other schools which I didn’t mind so much,

This episode features Steven McCluskey, the founder of the Bikes for Refugees Charity, which if you follow them on twitter, seems to be growing arms and legs or should that be pedals and chains? Bikes for refugees started through a meeting that included Steven, a young gentleman from Syria called Yaman and what Steven describes as a bike shaped object. Transcript K: I’m here with Stephen McCluskey the founder of bikes for refugees, hi Steven! S: Hi there. K: Stephen, standard question what’s on your mind? S: What’s on my mind? Well, let me tell you a story. A story about Bikes For Refugees Scotland and how that came about. A story about a young man that I met 3 years ago. A young gentleman from Syria who was a refugee called Yaman. And Yaman had arrived in the UK in Edinburgh pretty much with no more than the clothes on his back and I think it was fair to say he was alone, afraid, a bit uncertain of what the future may bring having left his family and many of his loved ones back home in war-torn Syria thousands of miles away. Not long after arriving in Edinburgh Yaman bought himself a beat-up old bike from Gumtree for 10 or 15 quid just to help himself get around and explore his new surroundings. The only problem was that the bike was more of a bike shaped object than a working bicycle that was actually capable of getting him anywhere. So I and my partner Beth way took Yaman down to our local bike shop to see if we could get it fixed up and get him on the road. To cut a long story short the bike was not worth repairing but the guy who ran the bike shop very kindly gifted a bike to Yaman and over the next couple of weeks and couple of months I just noticed how such a simple thing as a bike really made a big difference to Yaman. It just helped him save money, it helped him to settle into his new home and explore his surroundings and I suppose two things crossed my mind. One was could there be any other people out there like the guy in the bike shop who was kind and generous enough to donate a bike to Yaman? And were there other refugees and asylum seekers out there who, like Yaman would also benefit from having access to a bike? So one night sitting in the house I thought I would test that out and bikes for refugees was launched on Facebook. And fast forward two and a half, three years and we’ve now had over 600 bikes donated. Nearly 585 has been refurbished and distributed to refugees and asylum seekers across Scotland. Mostly across the Central Belt. Our biggest demand for bikes is actually in Glasgow but also in Edinburgh as well. And people tell us that the user bikes for a whole range of things. So they use their bikes for – kids used bikes for cycling to school, to college, to university, to access essential language classes. People use bikes to access volunteering and work opportunities, to access essential health services, meetings with the home office and lawyers. And people also use their bikes to come together and meet new people and make new friends. So in Glasgow, we have a cycling group. We try and link people up. A lot of asylum seekers and refugees particularly in Glasgow can be quite isolated as well. So bikes help to bring people together. So that’s bikes for refugees. K: And what’s Yaman doing now? S: Yaman? Yes, Yaman was very much the inspiration behind the project. He is still living in Edinburgh. He has made his new home here. He is settled. He has many friends. I suppose he is probably as happy as he could be under the circumstances. His parents and his family are still back in Damascus. They were too old to flee. When Yaman actually left Syria and Damascus, he left with his sister. He was separated I believe, from his sister at the Syrian border. He’s now been reunited with Buthaina his sister who also now lives in Edinburgh w...

Amal Azzudin and members of the Sawti Project taken at the opening of their exhibition Amal Azzudin is a campaigner for human rights and social justice in Scotland. She is a Somali-born Scottish refugee and activist who co-founded the Glasgow Girls a group of seven young women who campaigned against the harsh treatment of asylum-seekers in response to the detention of one of their friends. The Glasgow Girls story has since been turned into two BBC documentaries, a stage musical and a television musical drama. The stage musical toured again this year. In 2016 Amal was named by both the Young Women’s Movement and the Saltire Society as one of the Outstanding Women of Scotland and in 2018 she won the University of Glasgow’s World Changing Alumni award. Amal is also an Ambassador for the Scottish Refugee Council. Since leaving University, Amal has worked for the Mental Health Foundation in Scotland as Equality and Human Rights Officer responsible for the development of the Foundation’s work with asylum seekers and refugees. She leads on the Foundation’s Sawti project. Amal continues to campaign and speak out and we were delighted to catch her in Glasgow a few weeks ago. Transcript -0- K: I’m here with Amal Azzudin who is a campaigner for human rights and Social Justice and she currently works for the Mental Health Foundation. Amal welcome and thanks so much for agreeing to his podcast. The usual question Amal, what’s on your mind? A: What’s on your my mind? Ok just before you arrived today I was running a group with asylum seekers and refugee women. Basically, they are part of a mentoring scheme that I am running here at the (Mental Health) Foundation and the idea is to get them mentored by professionals. But also it is meant to be two-fold. It’s not just refugees learning from professionals but professionals also learning from refugees. It is about the human story and it’s about building that human connection and actually identifying what we have in common rather than our differences where we were born and so on. And as we know a lot of refugees have professional backgrounds. You know. Just around the table, we had someone who was a diplomat who worked for the Yemeni embassy. We have someone who’s got a PhD. We’ve got someone who has a background in Healthcare. So people have amazing professional backgrounds but unfortunately because they’re not allowed to work. They’re not able to use that. So the mentoring scheme is hopefully something that people can use and learn from productively until they get that piece of paper whenever that happens. K: And when will the mentoring scheme start? A: It has already started. It started last year. We’ve got four people who have already been mentored. We’ve got someone from an architecture background, someone who was mentored by Skyscanner so it’s a kind of IT business, and because the man is from Nigeria he’s got like a masters in IT and business but he’s not allowed to work so he’s sitting at home doing nothing. And then somebody wanted to be mentored by a politician and somebody wanted to be mentored around health and improvement and so on. So yeah. But we’ve got a new group now so we’re looking for mentors K: Ok so an outcome of this might be a request for Mentors A: Yes K: Excellent, we will repeat that at the end. You’ve been campaigning for human rights since you were 15 years old can you remind us of the stimulus for that? A: In 2005 I was at Drumchapel High School and one of my school friends Agnesa, a Roma gipsy from Kosovo was dawn-raided and detained. So basically on a Sunday morning fourteen home office officials handcuffed Agnesa’s father, separated to the family into two vans and they drove them to a detention centre in England called Yarls Wood and locked them up like criminals ...

Refugees and asylum seekers experience huge and varying amounts of psychological stress before and during and after their journey to settle into a host country. This can seriously impact their mental health. This podcast is about a project that is focused on psychological interventions for preventing the onset of mental disorders in refugees and asylum seekers once they reach a host country. It uses an adaptation of a self-help tool called Self Help Plus developed by the world health organisation (WHO). The project is looking for adult Arabic speakers in Glasgow to train as facilitators. If you’re interested full contact details are in the podcast and they will be repeated at the end of this podcast and in the show notes. To find out about the Re-Define project, I visited Strathclyde University where I met Dr Ross White and Mariana Popa. Transcript -0- K: I’m here with Dr Ross White and Mariana Popa also known as Mimi. You work for an EU funded project called RE-define. Can you tell us a little bit about it, please? R: Yes. Re-define is a collaboration between academic institutions across 5 different EU countries. These countries are Italy, Germany, Austria, Finland and the UK and we also have a Turkish arm of the project as well. So the project is interested to evaluate a low-intensity psychosocial intervention aimed at helping to promote well-being and functioning in refugee and asylum-seeking populations. So we are one of the sites for the EU countries and we are recruiting people in Glasgow. K: So the outcome of this podcast might be a request for recruits? R: That could be part of what we are about to do today yes. K: So can you set the scene around the psychosocial psychological needs of refugees living in camps. R: Maybe I can begin and I can pass over to Mimi just to help fill in the gaps and the stuff that I might miss. If we can think broadly of factors relating to the mental health of refugees and asylum seekers being across three different time periods. So if you think about the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers have before they start the migratory journey, they may be subject to torture, persecution, discrimination, ostracisation, being marginalized within their country of origin and their community of origin. So we then have the migratory journey itself which can be traumatic for people and we know only too well from the sights and scenes that we’ve seen on the news in terms of some of the journeys, very traumatic and difficult journeys, that people embark on across the Mediterranean for example or across deserted areas or of sub-Saharan Africa. So there’s also then the period of time that follows the arrival of the refugee or asylum seeker as they are initially, in the country that’s hosting them. We know that the asylum process can be very stressful and we also know that the reception that people can sometimes get can prove challenging. There is a process of cultural adaptation and about acculturation in the host country. Then people are subject to ongoing uncertainty and precarity. They may be worried about family members who are distant from them now. They may have concerns about whether or not the Host country is going to offer them refugee status. So there’s a lot for people to be stressed and worried about and the need then for these forms of support to help boost mental health and wellbeing is so important. Mimi, maybe you want to comment on some other factors that might impact on mental health? M: Yes I think a lot of the research focuses on the traumatic factors pre-migration. So there’s not much going on about what happens after they arrive. Being a refugee or asylum seeker can have a profound impact on mental health.

Hello and welcome to the Refugee Voices Scotland podcast. This is our first birthday episode! We are one year old. In this episode, we interview Selina from Refuweegee, the subject of our very first podcast to find out what has happened since we last spoke a year ago. You will not be surprised to find out that there’s a lot.