I spent some of my time in May and June working on this with the P7 pupils at Carnwadric Primary School.
It's a short clip about the 8 week activity we ran with puppeteer Shane Connolly of the Scottish Mask and Puppet Centre. This is the second time we used the medium of puppets and a puppet show, and I'm an utter convert. It's fun and gets amazing stuff out of kids, they never cease to impress me. You can also view the actual puppet show.

Now that the gods (aka directors) decided that my area of work will be shut down by the end of this year, the time has come for some navel gazing. On the one hand, it's a great organisation to work for, and conditions of employment are really the best I've ever had. Can this be enough? Because, on the other hand, they are cutting the work I feel passionate about and I feel very critical about this decision. Some questions I've been asking myself are these: Do I want to work for an organisation who abandons their work with two groups of children whose rights are most abused in the UK? Do I want to fit in with the new focus of work, and no longer work with asylum seeking/refugee children? Is there any realistic chance that I will actually be able to continue working there even if the answer to both questions is yes? Shall I stick it out, take redundancy pay and potentially "gardening leave" hoping to maybe still find a niche within the organisation while enjoying the good life in the next few months? Or is it wiser to apply for other jobs right now? Will I accept a potential pay cut when applying for other jobs (I'm not exactly overpaid as it is)?

My feelings range between anger, acceptance and disappointment. I'm living through days where I run fabulous sessions with young people that are exciting, motivating and full of promises that won't be realised because the powers in charge decided that we're not important enough and next I'm confronted with the harsh reality of winding down a programme of work which is in top gear.

Arguments go in circles. What is value? To impact on the largest number of children or to impact on the severest child rights abuses? Is it numbers we're after, nothing but numbers? Was the decision made bearing a future Tory government in mind which will make raising funds for asylum/refugee work even harder than it already is? Am I working for an organisation who only take the easy path? May they unwittingly be consolidating their status as a charity which appeals to the white upper middle class of advanced age who on the whole prefer to care  about children of darker skin colour only when they live outside of the UK?

Among the certainty of the redundancy of my work and our team, the management is talking of withdrawing with dignity and embracing the new direction with the usual determination to make the impossible happen. I'm sorry. I'm not ready to sign up for it just yet. And I don't know if I will be at some point - I need more time for the moment. As far as job applications are concerned, it's a tricky business. When is the best time to ask for flexible working hours, special leave entitlements and childcare voucher schemes?

Looking at vacancies it is disconcerting to find out how many ask for an ability and willingness to work irregular hours, weekends and nights away. In my previous life I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Now with child, such conditions effectively disqualify me - and I wonder if employers realise that they are excluding women with small children who may actually be excellent candidates for such jobs. It smells like indirect discrimination to me, similar to the unwanted side effect of the upcoming redundancies: They will to a high percentage affect the few minority ethnic staff that currently work for the organisation, making it even whiter than it already is.

I've spent the better half of my few working days the past three weeks organising a 2 hour swimming session.

That makes it a very expensive swimming session, even before you consider cost of a creche, a life guard, the venue hire, the support staff on the day and the input of my colleagues in the saga.

Why does it take so much effort?
Firstly, you need to coordinate the creche, 2 life guards (in case one drowns you need a second life guard), availability of pool, while avoiding other events in the area that might clash. To make it really tricky, most mobile creches don't do Saturdays, and most lifeguards are male, and looking for two female lifeguards for a weekend session is clearly asking for trouble.

The lifeguard issue is particularly daunting. For muslim women, it wouldn't be acceptable to have male life guard, which is partly the reason why we organise the swimming session. Local swimming pools can't even guarantee female lifeguards for women only sessions, and most pools nowadays are open to the street rather than enclosed which also doesn't exactly include muslim women. But how do you source female lifeguards? Glasgow is a big city, yet shockingly lacking in that department. I phoned every conceivable pool and finally got lucky in the neighbouring local authority, while the equalities and inclusion officer of Culture and Sport organised the second lifeguard. We literally had to pull all strings, talk our ears hot (?) on the phone and be a right pain in the bum to finally get there. 

I'm absolutely drained but have to admit with a certain amount of satisfaction hailing from the realm of defiance that on 7th June, 2-4pm, there will be a female only swimming session at a south side pool for asylum seeking and refugee mums with children under 5. All we now need to do is get the punters. That shouldn't be too hard, last time around we had an overwhelming response.

Unless something else goes wrong.

-----

And something did. In fact, two things went wrong. It's unbelievable really - Just a few days to the swimming session (remember, we're talking a one off 2 hours swimming session) the letting people advise me that the school undertakes a "backwash" every Saturday afternoon. Like, we enquired about availability for various Saturdays and never was this mentioned? Like, we asked the janitor as well to make sure there weren't any surprises?

All my pleading in vain. Either we look into another school or no let. Now, let's recap, we're planning to take asylum seeking mums of pre 5 children (who often may have older children too- I mean the mums, not the pre 5s of course) swimming. They don't have cars, no spare cash and can't afford transport. Nevermind that one bus can only ever take one pram, and buses only go every 30 mins on a Saturday. Which means that we'd have to stagger bus transport starting at 6 a.m.. Realistically, if we were to use another pool we'd have to taxi them there and back. Which kind of adds another £100 or so to the equation. When the second lifeguard decided to join the cancellation spree, I'd finally had enough.

Say it out loud and repeat after me:
I SHALL NEVER EVER TRY TO ORGANISE A SWIMMING SESSION AGAIN.

Culture and Sport, subdivision community lets, you're so fired.

Ok, here goes my first attempt at embedding a youtube video. We made this. It was a quick and dirty job, but I quite like it.
Enjoy!

I've just come across some interesting websites which I'd like to share. If Cubling sleeps tonight for a change, I might even add them to my blogroll.

Community Info Source: A Glasgow initiative with plenty of other good initiatives contributing to it.

The Glasgow Equalities Network Forum Blog: What a name. It's a GCVS initiative (that's for Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector). The GCVS do great stuff, and everything they do, they do well. This blog is not very exciting visually, but it's a fabulous resource for anyone interested in equalities in Glasgow and beyond.

Oh and this one, courtesy of Clairwil: Guerilla Gardening. Oh I love that one.

A few days ago, the Independent Asylum Commission published a report entitled "Saving Sanctuary". I was very keen to read it and to find out about conclusions which may have a certain vision for where asylum could go with a strong government leadership.
You can hear the however already, can't you.
Well, to start with, the big recommendation is to get rid of the term "asylum" and replace it with "sanctuary". To set an example, they use "sanctuary" throughout the report. At the same time, they are still called the "Independent Asylum Commission", rather than the "Independent Sanctuary Commission".
Now, if you had an organisation called the Independent Sanctuary Commission, would you have any idea of what they were about? I wouldn't, and I work in the field.

So why the change of language? Well, it's along the same lines that history becomes herstory and why an actress should be called an actor. They don't like the connotations associated with a word, and rather than challenge and change connotations, we use a different word. So, asylum calls up negative connotations, is confused in the public with economic migration and therefore its meaning is not as intended.

While I can understand the argument in relation to words which have a long history of negative connotations and, above all, abusive use (such as "nigger" or "papist"), I am very concerned by the argument in relation to a term which has a clear definition, legal status and appropriate use in professional discourse. For anyone who cares to find out, it's easy to know exactly what asylum means, what an asylum seeker is, and what the asylum process in the UK is. We are dealing with a legal term, which gives legal status to a person.

Then, consider the term "sanctuary". It's derived from latin, means a holy place, and still has religious connotations. Personally, I think of birds when I hear it. Not of asylum seekers or refugees that's for sure. It's woolly, all too well-meaning and has the potential of further alienating those already critical of immigration through the asylum system.

Furthermore, I'd like to challenge the issue that the commission has with "economic migration". Again, I understand it - anyone supportive of having a well functioning asylum system tend to stress that asylum seekers are not economic migrants. But to be honest, economics affect us all, and the reason for war, displacement, hunger, torture etc are always economic. Where do you draw the line, and how can you draw the line? Is someone who flees their country in the light of people burning their lifelihoods not an economic migrant? Doesn't economics and the gulf between rich and very poor create the basis for ware, abuse and the need to flee a country? I think it does.
Of course, not every economic migrant is an asylum seeker, but I don't see the term "economic migrant" as intrinsically evil or at odds with seeking asylum.

Wouldn't it be more productive to continue raising awareness of what it means to be an asylum seeker, how few asylum seekers there are in comparison to other immigrants in the UK, and how incredibly difficult it is to be granted asylum? I certainly won't change my job title just yet.

Oi! Here's some campaigning stuff. Look at the poster in the attachment, isn't it nice. Better even, look at this website and send a letter to Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary. Why? Well, in 1991 the UK signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. So far so good.

However, they decided that although this convention says that the rights apply to all children, this would not be so in the UK, where children subject to immigration control have lesser rights. This means that the UK can pass legislation without considering children's rights if the legislation affects children without leave to remain in the UK. That would be asylum seeking children, trafficked children, unaccompanied children. This is why asylum seeking children can be indefinitely detained without having committed a crime or having legal recourse to challenge such detention. This is why Glasgow City Council can operate a separate admissions system for pre 5 services and only offer free nursery places to children of asylum seekers who are 4 years (rather than the statutory entitlement of nursery education for ALL 3 and 4 year olds). This is why the UK can deport children whose parents have committed a crime, even though the children haven't. And so on.

At present, there's a consultation out (closes 25th April) which asks if this reservation should be removed. So you can find the question easily - it's question 16 in the consultation document.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says that all children have the same rights. Full stop. No exceptions. This UK reservation is big time unfair, so let's tell the Home Secretary and "Children's Champion" at the Home Office what they should have known for years. Let's just get rid of this reservation.

Some children in the UK can be imprisoned without having committed a crime.
Some young people in the UK cannot get a driving license.
Some children in the UK are denied financial help to undertake full time further education.
Some young people in the UK cannot open a bank account.
Some children in the UK may be deported from the country because their parent committed a crime.
Some children in the UK cannot take part in school trips to Europe.
Some three and four year olds in the UK are not allowed to attend nursery.
Some children in the UK are not treated as children first.

The UK signed the UN Convention on the Right of the Child in 1991, but although this convention is meant to apply to all children, regardless of where they live or their status, the UK applied a reservation to the convention: children who are not citizens and don't have residency status are therefore not protected. Asylum seekering and trafficked children in the UK are not treated as children first. The Borders and Immigration Agency are now running a consultation process on safeguarding children. At the end of April, there is a real chance that this shameful reservation could be lifted. Please add your voice to it.

We'll be campaigning with a group of young refugees and I'll keep you updated of what we're getting up to...

The Guardian ran an article on why detaining children for immigration purposes is wrong. It's worth a read because it demonstrates it with the story of Meltem Avcil, who lived in Glasgow, and because it asks the right questions.

It's the kind of article I would make compulsory reading to those commentators on social networking sites or online newspaper sites who have such simplistic views that an asylum seeker who has been refused must be an illegal immigrant who came here for economic reasons and who should now just go home.

Regardless of the details of Meltem's family's asylum application however, it still focuses on the detention of children and why this is wrong. In my work this is the only argument that counts. Sometimes this is limiting because some cases (such as that of Meltem's family) are so horrendous that it is beyond belief that refugee status is not granted by the Home Office. But I'm not a lawyer or adviser, so my opinions and beliefs count for nothing.

Anyway, read this article, I can't really put it any better than Natasha Walter.

 

According to Home Office statistics of 2006, 5,003 asylum seekers live in Glasgow. With Glasgow's population being at 578,800, this accounts for less than 1% of the city's total population. The total proportion of people born outside of the EU living in Glasgow is 3.44%.

There are over 1500 asylum seeking children attending school in Glasgow, two thirds of them attend primary school.
The nationalities of Asylum Seekers living in Glasgow are varied, but four countries account for about one third of all asylum seekers. These are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Pakistan and Somalia. Other major countries of origin are Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, China, Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkey and Zimbabwe.

There are currently 1770 main applicants.

As to "failed" asylum seekers, 164 applicants are receiving Section 4 support. So these are people who have come to the end of their case, have been refused and having signed up to voluntary return, cannot be removed. Those who don't sign up to vountary return will not receive Section 4 support, and are likely to be destitute.
During February 2006, 103 individuals presented themselves as destitute, twenty-seven of these had dependents (total of dependents was 51, 25 of these were under 18) given a total of 154 destitute asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow.

As to refugees (i.e. asylum seekers whose claim was successful) living in Glasgow, there is no robust information on numbers. However, 2080 refugees in Glasgow were registed with Jobscentre Plus during 2005 and there are 500 children with refugee status at Glasgow schools, so it is estimated that the number of refugees living in Glasgow is between 3000 and 4000. This number may be increasing at present with a large number of asylum seekers who have been in the country for three to seven years being given status under the legacy review.

While refugees have high rates of participated in formal education, training and employment before arrival in the UK, following arrival, even after obtaining refugee status, employment figures lag severely behind those of the BME population (29% vs 60% in employment) and average earnings are only 79% of the already low average earnings within the BME population. 11% of refugees earned less than the National Minimum wage.

Proficiency in English was identified as a determining factor in employment and income.