Zimbabwe Association Alleviates Exiles’ Suffering in UK

The Zimbabwean – As Zimbabwe has lurched from crisis to crisis, over the past eight years a small London-based charity has worked tirelessly to (alleviate the fallout among members of the Diaspora in the UK.
Sitting in a shoebox of an east London office, on a day when the cold outside cuts through even the thickest layers of clothing, Zimbabwe Association (ZA) co-ordinator Sarah Harland is speaking passionately about the depth of need she encounters every day among the exiled community. “There is any amount of despair still going on,” she says. “There are people destitute. People homeless or living in sub-standard housing. Some are isolated and cut off from friends and relatives, or living in fear on estates where they’re racially abused.”
Harland, who was born and grew up in Zimbabwe, helped found the ZA in 2001 to support asylum seekers and refugees from her homeland. “A few of us used to meet at The George pub [in the Strand] and we became increasingly aware that large numbers of Zimbabweans were stranded in detention centres and that no-one seemed to be doing anything to help them. It was a scandal.”

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