City of Sanctuary Autumn Update

Welcome to those of you who have joined the Leicester, City of Sanctuary circulation group recently, feel free to share this information with any family, friends, colleagues who you think might be interested in the work we are doing, and if at any time you would prefer not to receive any further letters please feel free to let me know!

Various events and meetings relating to asylum seekers and refugees, which are open for you to attend:

Monday 15th September, 3pm at the Friends Meeting House, Queens Road – Faiths Support Group for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: a meeting for individuals and groups, of any faith or none, who are interested in supporting asylum seekers and refugees.

Monday 6th October, 10.30am at the British Red Cross, London Road – new accommodation project initial meeting: to discuss setting up an accommodation project for destitute asylum seekers.

Tuesday 14th October, 10am at the Town Hall – Multi Agency Forum for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: a meeting for organisations which directly or indirectly provide services for asylum seekers and/or refugees.

Friday 17th October, 10.30am at the Secular Hall, Humberstone Gate – Independent Asylum Commission presentation and debate: the latest in our series of quarterly open-meetings (invitation letter and booking form enclosed).

Tuesday 11th November, 10am at the Town Hall - Multi Agency Forum for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: a meeting for organisations which directly or indirectly provide services for asylum seekers and/or refugees.

Tuesday 11th November, 12noon at the Town Hall – Voluntary Sector Forum for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: a meeting for voluntary sector organisations which directly or indirectly support asylum seekers and/or refugees.

Wednesday 19th November, 3pm at the Friends Meeting House, Queens Road – Faiths Support Group for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: a meeting for individuals and groups, of any faith or none, who are interested in supporting asylum seekers and refugees.

We have lots of ideas for events, activities and small projects, either to help raise awareness about asylum seekers and refugees or to better support those who are living in our community, and need more volunteers to get involved in developing these ideas so if you are interested please get in touch, for example:

‘Voucher exchange’ – many asylum seekers are issued supermarket shopping vouchers as their only means of buying food, toiletries, clothing etc, meaning they cannot make use of markets, charity shops, etc to make their limited income go further, and also meaning they do not have any access to cash, for example to catch a bus or to use a payphone.  In other parts of the country there are projects where people who usually shop in supermarkets already can indirectly ‘exchange’ them, thereby giving an asylum seeker choice in where they do their shopping – but we need a small group of people to help us set up and run this project.

‘Website development’ – we have our own section on the national City of Sanctuary website but are currently under-using this valuable resource – if you are interested in developing and regularly updating the information on the website please get in touch.

‘Refugee week 2009′ and other events - we are already thinking about future events, as far ahead as Refugee Week 2009 next June! – if you have ideas and/or would like to get involved in organising an event please let me know.

Our group of ‘speakers’ have attended training sessions and are ready to respond to requests to give presentations to interested groups – if you would like to request a speaker for a group you represent please get in touch.

That’s it for now, if there is anything you would like more information on please get back to me!

Yours sincerely,

Gill Buttery

Development Worker

07716 073403

[email protected]