“You can’t impose empowerment”
Community Sponsorship naturally attracts people who want to help others. You get involved because you want to help refugees in a practical way. But sometimes helping people can disempower them. So how do you empower newly arrived refugees rather than simply help them? Eveline, a Community Sponsor in Bristol, gives us her reflections on this question.
“Even if you can do a very small thing, just do it, because it will leave a good impact.”
As well as the physical impact of fasting, Ramadan can have an emotional impact on a family, reminding them of a way of life they have lost, and friends and family they can no longer celebrate with. Community Sponsorship volunteer Abdulrahman tells us more below and suggests how groups can support a refugee family through what can be a lonely time.
“Well, now you have sons”
Community Sponsorship volunteer Svenja Powell is one of the founding members of Canterbury Welcomes Refugees. The group first welcomed a Syrian refugee family in 2019: a mother and father, their two grown-up sons and their two primary-age children. Here Svenja tells us about lifting language barriers, a cautious introduction to Father Christmas and doorstep story-telling during lockdown.
“They gave me hope.”
Zahar and Lena arrived in a small market town in Lincolnshire just as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. At first they wanted to leave as quickly as possible and move to a bigger, more diverse city. But now they say they wouldn’t want to live anywhere else and are volunteering with their Community Sponsorship group to welcome another family to the area.
“Although being thanked was never our main motivation on some level we did expect gratitude”
A volunteer acknowledges that she expected gratitude from the refugee family that her Group supports. She examines the roots of these expectations and explains how she came to understand her role better once she confronted these expectations.