RAMFEL Speaks Out

How to spot an illegal immigrant....

2011-10-25T13:55:00.003+01:00

As the Government thinks of ever more ludicrous ways to whip up anti immigration hysteria, here is RAMFEL’s ‘unique’ guide to spotting an illegal immigrant

How to spot an illegal immigrant

1. They are not white

2. They speak with an accent of some description. The real test for the authenticity of the accent is to see how far they can maintain the aforementioned accent, when you shout at them very loudly in English in an attempt to make yourself understood

3. They eat funny foreign foods, not curry like you and I

4. They do jobs that no one else wants to do for less than the minimum wage, but it is still ok to be jealous of that

5. They usually come in groups. Not to be confused with gangs, (because gangs are a British phenomena) nor teams of football supporters, because we the British are the only ones that play football, anything else just wouldn’t be cricket!

No one is opposed to Crimestoppers or the detection, reporting and combating of real crime. As a charity Crimestoppers have undertaken some amazing work, but it makes a mockery of the charity’s claim to work with diverse communities when it allows itself to be so blatantly used in the political war against immigration. Furthermore how many people would really understand the difference, and be able to distinguish between an asylum seeker, migrant, refugee and someone who was ‘illegal’.

As recent research by the Migration Observatory at Oxford University http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/understanding-uk-public-opinion/executive-summary demonstrates public understanding of immigration is far divorced from the reality of the situation

• When thinking about immigrants, respondents were most likely to think of asylum seekers (62%) and least likely to think of students (29%). In current official (ONS) statistics, students represent the largest group of immigrants coming to the UK (37% of 2009 immigrant arrivals) while asylum seekers are the smallest group (4% in 2009).

• Respondents tended to think of immigrants as those who come to the UK permanently (62%) rather than those who come to stay temporarily (fewer than 30%). This differs from the internationally-agreed definition used for official UK statistics, which classifies anyone who comes to the UK for more than a year as a long-term migrant.

• When thinking about immigrants, people in Britain most commonly think about foreign citizens - 62% normally think about non-EU citizens and 51% about EU citizens (excl. British) - rather than people who were born abroad and acquired British citizenship after moving to the UK (40%). Very low proportions of the public have in mind British citizens moving (11%) or returning (7%) to the UK. Similarly, few people normally have in mind the UK-born children of immigrants to Britain (12%).

It is a reality born out by RAMFEL’s own experience of training, where at the beginning of the course less than 6 (2%) of the 270 people we trained and informed (over the last 12 months) actually knew the difference between and asylum seeker and refugee. The natural consequence of discussions about ‘grassing’ illegals to the police, is one step away from saying that anyone who works with an individual who is here without status, is breaking the law. If ever there was a need for strong leadership in the refugee voluntary sector it is now.

To so blatantly classify ‘immigration’ as a crime, shows both desperation and a misunderstanding of the how inappropriate and callous the current immigration system is. Furthermore when the police are also charged with enforcement and fostering good relations between communities we need to think again as to how we specifically deal with the thorny issue of policing and immigration, nationally and locally.

Rhyme and Rhetoric - the truth about Black History Month 2011

2011-10-10T07:14:00.000+01:00

So here we are again, Black History Month. RAMFEL’s position is clear, we do not see why we should in an allegedly ‘fair and just society’ have to mark out one month to remind everyone of their failure to understand and be respectful towards other communities.

But needs must and there is a great expectation that some how, somewhere that Black History Month will simply just happen. Gone are the days when local authorities and public sector partners would play a co-ordinating role, and view it with a sense of pride, instead public sector partners are opting for a ‘partnership approach’.

Meaning in reality, someone else do it, we’ll promote it and say we’re a part of it. No we don’t have the money or even the staff time to invest in it, but we will just piggy back onto it, and conveniently tick our boxes to say ‘job well done’.

What this all suggests, is a lack of leadership and lack of courage by public sector partners.

Whether justified by the recession, or fear of heightening community tension, it is interesting to see what public sector partners do and do not invest in, and to be honest equality is way down the pecking order. Aided and abetted by the dubious provisions of the Equality Act 2010, it is now up to the Black and Minority Ethnic community and voluntary sector to hold public sector partners to account, using the language of ‘due regard’ and not the antiquated playground politics of Equality Impact Assessments.

As the recent real life exchange below demonstrates, there is still plenty of work to be done…

Day 1 Policeman - "Rita we need some ethnic communities to sit on our committee, I'm looking for Ethiopians, can you help?"

Rita- "Are you sure you mean Ethiopians and not Somalis?"

Deadly silence, 24 hours later, Policeman 'Yes, you're quite right, I meant Somalis"

Day 2 Policeman "Will also need some Eastern Europeans for the committee?"

Rita "Where about specifically in Eastern Europe?"

Policeman "Don't want so say, wouldn't want to exclude anyone or sterotype"

Our thoughts precisely…

Mr Singh goes to Poland, and other adventures with the UK Border Agency

2011-09-12T08:49:00.001+01:00

Photo: Grame Weston Mr Singh, and friend

For almost a year next week, RAMFEL has been working intensely on the issue of rough sleepers, and especially rough sleepers with no recourse and immigration problems. In at least two of the boroughs it is an issue that is constantly taxing the minds of a number of officials from across a number of departments, add to this a plethora of homeless charities and you sadly have very little return for a lot of investment of time and money.

In one borough we have a group of about 13 rough sleepers who congregate daily on the benches outside a local police station. Initially most were from the Punjab, in India, but walk down there most days and you’re see the best example of community cohesion and, dare I say it, multiculturalism, I have witnessed.

United by the fact that the law restricts them being able to access housing and in some cases health and social care services, the group sits, and sleeps merrily on a wall and benches directly outside the police station.

Passers by are more perturbed by what these individuals MAY do than what the actually do. Situated also within the local town centre and main shopping area, allegedly, local shops are concerned about the consequences on their trade. Let’s be clear these are no angels, but nor do they deserve the scorn that is sometimes directed towards them.

The situation is simple, most of them are stateless or for a variety of reasons, and either lost or destroyed their documents when coming into the country. Most from the Punjab tell the same story about either coming over in a lorry through Europe, or being bought over by an agent, and sold a dream of rags to riches in the UK. On arriving the agent disappears and they are left to scrabble for work illegally.

Apart from a few scuffles amongst themselves usually over booze, they keep themselves to themselves.

With the thought of another harsh winter ahead, the local authority has been concerned about what can be done to resolve the difficulties these individuals face, and we too were equally concerned. However the approaches to resolving the situation are extremely different.

Spurred on by the desire to rid the streets of London of rough sleepers by 2012, the Greater London Authority has invested a lot of time and money in funding organisations like London Street Rescue to help rough sleepers. We’re not sure if these agencies actually have the right skills and expertise to work on migration and immigration issues, and actually lets be honest if they have the right ethical and political commitment. If you’re also taking money to help support repatriation then there is a limit to how you can impartially support people with immigration problems.

So yet again over the summer RAMFEL was forced to shout we told you so!

Much against our advice the local council thought well lets see if we can move these individuals on, with the aid of the UK Border Agency, naturally in aka Big Society style multi agency approach. We were particularly clear, it was wrong, wouldn’t work and we wanted to part of it. Sadly a local homeless charity naively did not see the danger (until one very shocked funder pulled them up on it) and was all set for the UK Border Agency to come and offer ‘advice sessions’.

In the best interests of appeasement we were told that since there was relatively little that could be done with these rough sleepers, and they were stateless there would be no danger of deportation, because they had no papers. Fair enough, so why I hear you asking go through this charade, was it to demonstrate to the business , passers by that some thing was being done, was it to scare the rough sleepers, or was it just naïve optimism that it by involving the UK border Agency it would become someone else’s problem?

The day came for the operation, a bright sunny June day just before Refugee Week. The UK Border Agency could not get the special permission they needed to work before 6am, because apparently immigration issues don’t happen out of office hours!

By the time the merry troop of UK Border Agency officers arrived at 7am, most of the rough sleepers had packed up and had started their day. Nonetheless one of the tasks the UK Border Agency was tasked with was to take pictures of the rough sleepers, that could be shared with agencies locally. Unfortunately for health and safety reasons they were unable to use a camera! Stil don't understand that, maybe it was the fear of a flash

The UK Border Agency managed to get into a squat that was being used and pulled out a couple of individuals. They asked them to report in central London the following day, like that was going to work! Some were even offered support to return home, even when home was a little confusing. Mr Singh came in to us, after prayers at the local guardwara, very confused about how he as the only Indian national with leave to remain was being told he could go back to Poland!

Just as interesting, and this is the issue that is very rarely talked about, was the impact on the local. The fall out, emails that were banded back and forth (must to the annoyance of the UK Border Agency) let to many more ‘let's appease RAMFEL meeting’. I must admit it always makes me laugh when local authorities in particular ask for such meetings (not that they call them that, they prefer the term partnership meeting) when they think we have been naughty. It’s like being summoned into the head teachers office like a naughty little child, and being told off in a very assertive whisper.

There was however other implications locally, which demonstrates the huge gulf between policy and practice on these issues. The Mayor of London’s refugee Integration strategy makes clear that the Police have a role in both supporting colleagues at the UK BA on enforcement, but also in promoting community cohesion. And with the latter very much in mind, it was that the local police offered to celebrate Refugee Week 2011 by hosting a joint tea party where they would donate a collection of clothes to us as a charity. (As the officer leading on the celebrations said, nothing blood stained from the property store, that’s ok then). But it was a thoughtful and humanising gesture that would have served all concerned well. That was until the raids where the local police were dragged in as interpreters. As we made quiet clear you can’t raid a community one week and then sit down to tea and fairy cakes with them the next.

And this all the same week as the IPPR report asks for refugee charities to work more closely with the UK Border Agency, there is as much chance of that as Mr Singh visiting Poland!

Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil, especially when it comes to Equality

2011-09-02T06:37:00.001+01:00

The government has been busy trying to chip away at the Equality Act, undermining the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, claiming that Equality legislation was unnecessary and bureaucratic by entrapping it within the Red Tape Challenge. Not satisfied with a response for overwhelming support for its continuation, now it is being attacked from another direction.

Apparently murmurings from the CLG (Communities and Local Government) are going to allow councils to do away with asking residents and users of public services for their demographic data. Allegedly such data is an infringement of privacy laws according to the Daily Mail’s interpretation, http://www.google.co.uk/#q=daily+mail+%2B+equality&hl=en&prmd=ivnsu&source=univ&tbm=nws&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=e2lgTu3NKIewhQfsl_Qh&ved=0CCAQqAI&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=9db67fb2b395b368&biw=832&bih=413and true you really should not read everything you read in the newspapers, but it does accentuate central governments suspicion of all things to do with equality.

All talk of Equality has been replaced by fairness, and mention of community cohesion by integration. Yet the basic principles to implementing both remain the same, you need to know what is and is not happening within different communities to be able to tell if things are fairer and to understand how people are feeling towards individuals who are not the same as them. Those working in equality need to seize back the semantics and step up our collective game to dispel the myths and tirade of attacks on the concept. We are not even comparing like with like, cohesion is not the same as integration, and as if the same CLG department knows this, they have reduced their autumn announcement on integration from a strategy to a policy statement. The suggestion being that, this will give local authorities the flexibility to do more, or in some cases and judging by some of their responses to consultations earlier in the year, nothing at all.
We should learn lessons from the world of immigration and migration. A great deal is currently being discussed about having data and developing a more mature and sophisticated debate that avoids the extremes of the left – let them all in, and extreme right – keep them all out. Such data and the development of a reasonable debate relies on keeping accurate records, not something that the UK Border Agency is well known for.

By portraying equality as a secret cult of busy bodies, and those on the extreme left, the government ignores at its peril the business argument for equality. More inequality means more intervention by the state (Big Society still hasn’t taken off, and councils and the voluntary sector remain bewildered and confused by it) which means more costs. More inequality fuels tension between the perceived ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.

It is not rocket science, but what we wouldn’t give for some of the scare mongers on equality to be sent into outer space!

P.S A big apology to all those who have asked what has happened to the blog over the last few months and why we have been so quite, not enough time to write, and too much potential for libel! But we're back now and have a lot to say.

Nowt as stupid as folk...

2011-06-15T07:32:00.001+01:00

My mother always said if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Given the current political and social context of working in equalities it’s a wonder I am not a selective mute.

Apologies to all those who have asked where we have been, my email box has overflowed with you concerned souls asking is everything alright, what has happened, why have we been so quite?

Well we have been a bit busy scanning the horizon for fools, and boy oh boy have we been spoilt for choice. There is a tendency for us as an organisation to be a bit opinionated (there, I have admitted it) and forthright in our views, but then really some people shouldn't make it so easy.

Here are just a few of the highlights of the last six weeks, (we wouldn’t want you to feel you have missed out on the soap opera that is RAMFEL). So since the last posting on 18th April, (yes it really has been that long) we have had all the fun of the Royal Wedding. Unfortunately no one we knew was invited, but then we wouldn’t have wanted to lower the tone. We did get asked if any of the Roma community in Redbridge would like to in the spirit of civic life to host a Royal Wedding Street Party. I didn’t even bother answering that one.
Sometimes the touchstone of tokenism is just way too easy to ignite.

Woolly liberal alert, and why shouldn’t the Roma be included in the Royal Wedding Celebration I hear you ask. It is a perfectly reasonable question, well to us it is a question of priorities, battling the government’s restrictive stance on Eastern Europeans from Romania and Bulgaria which makes finding employment and support so problematic vs. a street party with no funding...well you choose!

Then there was the community cohesion meeting from hell. Two hours of dross and dribble about a plan that no one had any money to implement or monitor. But then at least this time it wasn’t just poor beleaguered local authorities fault and it was nothing in comparison to the farce of consultation organised by the government on Equalities.

Laughable to the point of absurdity is the proposal to include the review or equality legislation as part of the Government’s Red Tape Challenge, - because nothing spells commitment to equality more than saying "we are going to revoke the legislative framework that forces you to do and publish your plan for the development, promotion and implementaion of equality". It is ironic that so many of us have been so critical of equality impact assessments, and once again their tick box approach that a virtual industry has grown up in pulling them apart. However faced with the challenge of loosing them, and no more challenges like the Roma Support Group’s high profile run in with London Councils (where the prospect of cuts to funding to a number of agencies across London was challenged on the basis that there had been no equality impact assessment done) we can start to appreciate how useful they were as a tool for excising leverage in discussions.
Obviously some of this flew completely over the heads of the weary souls at the NHS, who produly announced that from now on they will be forcing the agencies they commission from the voluntary sector to also undertake equality impact assessments. Too little, too late.
Then there is the consultation that closes today on the future of the mother of all equality agencies, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Once again it may not have been to everyone’s liking, but at least it was a reference and focal point for national government.
The current consultation is as stupid as it is bizarre. It talks about beefing up the EHRC’s independence by ensuring that the Secretary of State approves its annual business plan and work programme. Once done, the new EHRC will be free to work as an ‘independent’ regulator unhindered by the cumbersome demand of also being a funder for good relations work and discrimination advice services. One can only presume that as ever and in the best interests of competition complicated issues about discrimination can be reduced and managed via a proposed call centre, possibly somewhere in Mumbai.

So by the end of April (yes that was just two weeks worth of rant) disorientaed and weary there was nontheless still some hope, - 'localism'. Apparently if two of us can find common ground, we can moan and change the world! We can find land and build our own nirvana, we will have to raise the capital ourselves, but that shouldn’t be a problem as we become community organisers…

Coming up tomorrow, how we were trapped in a small space with the Deputy Mayor of London and a representative from UK Border agency and survived, and how a rough sleeper who is an Indian national with status is offered a one way ticket to Poland...

Cagney and Lacey find out about Immigration Detention

2011-04-18T11:56:00.000+01:00

We are back people, blogging our event that is coming up. Cagney and Lacey are learning about people in immigration detention.

What is Immigration Detention? Where are these detention centres? How long are people in there for? How are they getting treated?

So if we have so many questions I wonder what people out their actually know. We have been lucky enough to have been asked to join forces with other organisations such as the Dover Detainee Visitor Group, Praxis, London Detainee Support Group and the Detention Forum to raise awareness around immigration detention.

Fair enough, some people may not want to know or don’t even care but if they knew how they are treated or even how the system forgets them, how they can stay in detention for years and years, I think they might change their minds.

Immigration Detention is when asylum seekers, refugees or illegal immigrants get detained for either being an overstayer, having no documents at all, or they are being held till being deported

As you all know I and Lacey haven’t had much experience within immigration but this opens up new doors for us. We have been to visit the Detention Forum, which is an organisation that has loads of volunteers working for them that go to these detention centres to meet people that are in there. We know from one of our clients that it is scary and lonely in detention.

I thought it was just the men that be put in detention but it isn’t. In fact women and also mothers with children get detained. Now how could you put children in that situation? I agree that they shouldn’t be put in care straight away but surely there is another route that the Home Office could go down. We did get told that the law is going to change around children being put in detention.

Rita told me something interesting this morning while I was blogging, how Barnardos have took over one of the centres regarding children. Well done to them, but I think that they haven’t had much experience surrounding people in detention, they are a shop based charity which has done some work with asylum seekers, but do they know what or how they should be treated or even what the people in detention actually feel.

Where are these centres? I think we have in total 6. There is one behind Heathrow airport. Has anyone seen UK Border Force on the telly? They show you people that they have dented, just being put in the cells and that’s all you here, but after the cameras go off they are moved to the detention centre, unless they are being deported within hours. Shouldn’t this be known, as I have asked people who have watched the programme, and they assume they just stay in the cells at the airport? It is misleading.

It isn’t like prison, it is actually worse I think, as in prison you get sentenced for a certain amount of time but when your in detention you don’t. They could stay there for one week to ten years. Which is sad and makes me feel sick how people get forgotten like that. We actually found out that people who are being detained get a use of a mobile phone, but now when they use it is charged at premium rate, which is a joke. How can they charge that when they haven’t got any money? How are they supposed to call their solicitor or even their loved ones. Some of the people in detention are really good artist, they don’t get to do activities like people in prison, they cant even look out of a window to see abit of the outside world, so what are they meant to do all day?

If you want to know more you can always come down to the event

What is immigration detention? (information seminar and discussion)

Wed 20 April 2011, 6pm to 9pm, Old Town Hall, 29 The Broadway, Stratford,

London E15 4BQ

Find out more about immigration detention, what happens when people are detained, and what practical support local communities can be provide.

Every year over 20,000 people enter into one of the immigration removal centres in the UK. Currently there is a lot of talk about changes to the detention system for families with children, but detention still remains a harsh reality for some individuals and can have repercussions for whole communities.

Hosted by RAMFEL, the London Detainee Support Group, Praxis, the Dover Detainee Visitors Group and the Detention Forum, this is a timely opportunity to :  Find out more about detention  Find out how the system works  Find what faith groups, voluntary groups and communities can do to help those finding themselves detained and those that are then released.

With testimonies from individuals who were detained as well as a panel of experts, on hand to answer questions – this is a rare opportunity not to be missed.

To book your place, please email Lucy@ramfel.org.uk or call her on 020 8478 4513

Cagney & Lacey and the Boffs on the White Working Class

2011-04-08T19:37:00.001+01:00

We're back again people. Yes Cagney and Lacey are here giving our views on an interesting breakfast meeting we attended on Friday the 1st of April at London. We were so pleased that we had been given a chance to spend time learning ‘What does migration mean for the White Working Class in the UK?’.

http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/files/pdfs/Ben_Gidley/5557%20Compas%20Briefing%20Doc%206_LR7FINAL.pdf

As you may well know myself and Danielle ain't up with all the big words so we had our famous Mohammad Hoshi with us to help when we needed it.

So what is the ‘white working class’? Is there such a thing as white working class nowadays?
I don’t think so, if that’s the case then only a small amount of people could be classed as that. It has nothing to do with colour, or how much money you have or even faith, cos ‘white working class’ people may have come from a migrant background themselves but don’t know it. Their parents, grandparents or even great grandparents may have moved from another country to the UK. So white people may think they are British but are they really?
Have a think about that when you are complaining about asylum seekers and refugees.

The interesting part of the meeting was when we were told about ‘how the white working class has featured in policy and media debates?’

Well that’s when it started getting confusing. We wrote what we thought they were saying, but a couple of people have read it and thought we have got the wrong end of the stick. We was looking at the hand outs and we thought they had split up the ‘White Working Class’ into two ways, the Chavs and Beleaguered Natives, but actually we have figured it out now.

Apparently its all about stereotypes. A stereotype is when you define a certain thing based on what you think. So like boffs at Oxford, who we thought would be really posh but they aint. (Your actually really nice).

People usually think a ‘chav’ is classed as people from council estates backgrounds, single parents or poor. A chav is what other people think you are, but a beleaguered native is what some journalist, MPs and boffs think is white people who think they are hard done by.

So im a chav then, as I’m from Barking and Dagenham, which is largely populated by council residents. But I know I ain a chav, it shouldn’t matter about where you come from or how much money you have.

The boffins then went on to talk about how some of the ‘white working class’ could get vexed (beleaguered, I had to google it though), about not having houses and jobs, which is what our local BNP went on about. I have been thinking hard about this ‘beleaguered native’ bit, and do I think there wont be any white people left in Barking and Dagenham in ten years time?

Yes and No. People in Dagenham reckon that there won’t be because they are moving asylum seekers and refugees from places like Stratford to Dagenham. And like the school opposite us, the parents are complaining due to the fact their children can’ get places in local schools.

None of this would be a problem though if they built bigger schools to accommodate (think I’m getting a bit posh as well now) the children. Like my old school has took away half the playing field to build another part to the school, so if they had done this in the first place, the parents wouldn’t be moaning.

So when you hear in the media about migrants or asylum seekers taking all our jobs and getting more money then us, there is no proof of this. I think personally that the media has to take part of the blame for people having bad judgements surrounding asylum seekers, refugees and migrants. If the media actually showed the good and bad things surrounding this, people would be more understanding like me and Danielle.

As we said to Becky Taylor one of the speakers at the meeting. We live in Barking and Dagenham, and the BNP advertised a lot and was always in our local paper, only saying the bad things regarding asylums seekers, refugees and migrants. If the local media also pointed out what asylum seekers, refugees and migrants have to go through, how they don’t get everything as soon as they come here, then the BNP wouldn’t of had any supporters, but the media didn’t, they just allowed people to see one side.
If it wasn’t for RAMFEL we would of probably have been like everybody else, but we aint cause we have been shown a different side.

God, didn’t realise i wrote that much. I liked attending the breakfast meeting, the breakfast was nice and it was very interesting, made us think about what who we are and how people sees us and how we sees them, and it was a pleasure to meet Michael, Ben, Ben and Becky.

Cagney and Lacey attended the COMPAS Breakfast Briefing http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/events/forthcoming/forthcoming-breakfast-briefings/#c1125

You can also join Cagney and Lacey next week at the

Barking & Dagenham Coming Together St George's Day Quiz Night on

Thursday 14th April 7-9pm at the Ripple Centre, 121-125 Ripple Road,

Barking, IG11 7PB.

Drinks and refreshments, entry £1.00 per person, with all monies going to a registered charity of the wining teams choice http://www.ramfel.org.uk/news.php?action=displayItem&id=85

April Fools?

2011-04-01T09:35:00.004+01:00

Have you missed us? Sorry we’ve not been as regular as usual, we have been a bit ‘constipated’ with end of financial year projects to deliver. Don’t you just love it when public sector partners have to get rid of their money, and suddenly things you have been moaning about all year become viable projects – just like magic.

Anyway we have also kept a note of all the main issues and you’re be receiving four blogs next week to tickle your funny bones and then its the return for a month of Cagney & Lacey, on white working class idenity, and immigration detention.

But first a riddle?

Who am I?
According to my biograpghy I speak four languages
I am a leading London politician
I spoke at a conference last week to a room full of refugee and migrant community organisations
I made reference to the conference running on ‘African time’, to the issues of some refugee communities being like Salami, and claimed that the ‘clan’ issues of places like Somali were being replayed on the streets of London
I complained that there were too many Somali groups in London
I bemoaned the concept of multiculturalism

Who am I, I am the Chair of the London Migration Partnership

It’s unfortunate such statements were made, because on other occasions where he has spoken, he has been (despite reading off a well prepared script) quite passionate and extremely supportive– what the comments last week represent is yet another shift change in the political direction, a regressive step change towards problemitising refugee and migrant communities - a result of the recession where everyone is feeling more vulnerable.

However just as bad was the deafening silence and opposition to challenging such a statement. In a room full of quite vocal and well known refugee community organisations (RAMFEL included) not one of us saw fit to challenge the opinions directly. I admit I did toy with the idea of walking out, but was also aware that I had to deliver a workshop afterwards at the same conference. The bigger problem is not what was said, but the lack of leadership that does not allow such comments to be challenged.

When asked in the afternoon by the Chair of the Conference if people wanted to feedback anything to the GLA about what was said, a few of us were quite vocal and there was a broad consensus in the room that the organisers would feedback the discomfort of the attendees. After the fourth speaker had spoken on the issue, we had watered down my original ask for a letter from the organisers to the speaker politely outlining how the comments were viewed, to a ‘chat’.

A true mark of leadership is to try and retain your principles and priorities, what Barnes said may have been unpalatable but at least he had the courage of his convictions, how the refugee and migrant sector responded suggests that we are an easily dispensable part of the debate about our own future.

If anyone wants us, we'll be in the third naughty corner on the left...

The wheel is turning...but the hamster is dead

2011-02-25T06:57:00.002Z

What are we to make of landmark events like St Patrick’s Day, St George’s Day, Refugee Week and Black History Month, in the new era of the Big Society?

As an organisation we have always been rather cynical and sceptical about the power of such days and weeks. There is always a hiatus of activity for the few days prior to the event and then it all falls flat, faster than you can say ‘tokenism’.

However this year we may have to curb our cynicism and crank up our enthusiasm. Just because these events, IF managed properly maybe our only option for supporting a more sophisticated understanding of race, culture, ethnicity and migration.

So what can we look forward to? It is really hard to think of anything that is different, genuinely interesting, and that does not patronise or come across as a form of voyeuristic fascination with the 'other'.

So while we put our thinking caps on, here is RAMFEL’s top 10 dos and don’ts for celebrating cultural landmark events:

1. Promote properly, make sure your publicity material includes a consortia of multi ethnic hands, and a globe. Make sure you have the date right – June is just one long celebration of carers, volunteers and refugees. You could have carers who were also volunteers and happened to be refugees - but people might think you were being a bit greedy.

2. Book a room with expandable walls! That way you can always literally model your event around the number of people who do or don’t turn up

3. Make sure the food is spicy enough to be understood as ‘ethnic’ but not too spicy to put people off and make poor jokes about Delhi belly

4. Have a bit of history in there – but do make sure you have the right community's history. Not all black people are refugees, and not all refugees are black people!

5. Make sure you have transportation available for your guest speaker or if you’re on a limited budget, have roller skates available. Your guest speaker will usually be in high demand because they will have to do 18 events a day for a week, and then no one will call them for the next 11 months!

6. Have ethnic music that is not too loud – because you don’t want to have an ASBO stuck on you for disturbing the neighbours

7. Have an awards ceremony. Make up a reason, like people showing up - to create that authentic sense of achievement

8. Don’t use the event to make any campaigning or policy points – cos that just sucks, and doesn’t make for good photos

9. Plan neither to start or finish on time - as your audience, like your speaker, would probably have just come from an event, and be planning to go onto another.

10. Any finally do believe that these things work – because just being in the same room as half a dozen refugees and ethnic people means you understand them so much better - which would also mean that getting on the tube in London could be the greatest advancement of community cohesion in years

For help on planning your key cultural calendar events, or help with flogging your dead horse, call RAMFEL on…..

Voluntary Groups to Seek Asylum

2011-02-21T08:58:00.000Z

Everybody has been jumping up and down over the last couple of weeks about the fact that the courts have forced London Councils (an organisation made up of all the London boroughs, that part from other work also fund a large number of community and voluntary organisations in London) to reconsider where they wield the axe.

The axe had fallen predominately on organisation’s providing front line services to ethnic and refugee communities. The case before the High Court relied on the claim by the Roma Support group (a truly unique organisation) that London Councils had not undertaken a proper equality impact assessment. And indeed the consultation process whilst extensive in reach, did not actually ask the right questions (more on that in future weeks where we’ll talk about the Art of Consultation), it categorised services into 3 categories services n A were London wide, Services in B could be sub regional and services in C were purely locally, (the responsibility of local councils).

No there are a number of issues with the categorisation as well as the fact that if the money that is put into the centre by the individual boroughs is as London Councils call it ‘repatriated’ (we’ll come back on the use of the word shortly) then there is no guarantee that it will be used to add additional value to the local community and voluntary sector.

However one of the issues that no one has dared to explore or highlight yet is the ‘old school boy network’ that is at play here. The services in category A are all the larger projects, allegedly pan London services and also designed to support organisations in categories B & C.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking, if there are no agencies left in B & C who are the As going to support? So why have some organisations that are well passed their use by date been allowed to survive. The real impact assessment that needs to be done is not just on how clients are affected, but the circles of influence, persuasion that has allowed a clique of decision and opinion makers to decide. Elected members aren't armed with enough information to ask the right question, why throw the baby out with the bathwater, why hasn't more been done to make the reporting system more appropiate.

There is also the incidental issue that one of the reasons why the new configuration of London Councils funding was arranged the way it was because some London boroughs especially the outer London boroughs were fed up of paying into a pot that did not directly benefit their residents, since most of the organisations were based in central London. Call us naïve but surely we could have had more robust monitoring to support that, not forgeting
client confidentiality - why couldn’t postcodes have been provided, random checks done and groups asked to bring forward groups of residents that had benefited from their service.
No that would be far too easy a get out; instead we had/have overly bureaucratic reporting mechanisms, epitoimised in the Stratgeic Monitoring Zones (no we haven’t been transported to Afghanistan).

RAMFEL is firmly of the opinion that all services for disadvantaged, minority groups, be they for LGBT, disabled people, or people on low incomes should be spared. However the public opinion against asylum, immigration and migration could make community and voluntary groups that work with new arrivals easy targets. And let’s face it they have already started with huge cuts to the Refugee Council’s direct front line services, another way of frustrating people back to their country. The first major cut that went was the Migrant Impact Fund, very few local authorities did anything, why because they were just so glad it wasn’t anything else!

The use of the word ‘repatriation’ is quite interesting. Now when people are repatriated from an immigration point of view it is usually either voluntary or forced, and based on the premise that either you don’t want to be here or the state doesn’t want you. When currency is repatriated (in a non money laundering sense) it is converted into the local version. We can be sure that in this context the funding won’t be translated or converted to meeting local needs, because so much has changed and most of the people assessing local need are doubtful about their own jobs. In some ways then the choice of repatriation is more than apt for the context of London Councils, because by default they have added fuel to the fire of inequality.

We need n additional way of looking an Equality Impact Assessments (while we still have them) that highlights the process of decision making as much as the end result.

So could we apply for asylum in another borough, not flaming likely, repatriation for many BAMER organisations means only one thing - death!

Hands off My Workmate - Big Society Styley

2011-02-14T06:06:00.003Z

The excellent Hands off My Workmate campaign this week called for a list of actions that places vulnerable migrant workers at the heart of the campaign against cuts.

Now the nature of public sector consultation has for sometime been shambolic, and most people have jumped on the issue of access to consultation and making sure everyone is heard – which is right to a point, (in the coming weeks we will be talking about the Art of Consultation and what is currently wrong with it), but there is also another issue at stake - the demand that WE the public be asked to mediate and choose between services.

In the context of services for asylum seekers, migrants and refugees it’s a dangerous precedent, fuelled by the flames of last week’s discussion on multiculturalism.

The Civil Penalty regime which basically polices employers who employ workers without the right immigration papers is being used to good effect to create tension in the work place. The most recent guidance from the UK Border Agency comprehensive guidance for employers on preventing illegal working published in November 2010, also offers incentives. Cooperation with the UK Border Agency means that the fines for employers are reduced, a grasses charter!

However if you look at who was fined in London last year, http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/employersandsponsors/listemployerspenalties/ it’s not the big large employers, it is the smaller, mostly ethnic businesses and take away franchises that have been targeted.

The NHS has been plagued by stories how thorough agencies they may have employed thousands of illegal workers, and there are even proud revelations on the NHS website about how hundreds of thousands of ponds http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/3315.aspx have been saved by catching people in operations run jointly with the UK Border Agency and the police. Last month 72 individuals were picked up at raids at Guys and St Thomas’s hospitals. How times have changed, from the heyday of Enoch Powell going to the Caribbean to recruit people from the West Indies to work for the NHS – to know where hospitals have become complicit in sending people back.

Now no one is saying that the law should be flaunted, but let’s look in more detail at the situation. The workers had been there for a number of years, paid possibly the minimum wage, and hopefully the London Living Wage; but there are issues about the use of agency workers and how they are more expendable especially if they don’t speak the language or know their rights.

Over at Transport for London there are issues around how people who are and have been legal for a number of years with the right paperwork are being ‘investigated’. There are concerns over health and safety. The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) quite rightly says it will not work with the UK Border Agency, in its attempts to safeguard migrant and vulnerable workers, stories are rife in the construction industry for example about people loosing limbs because of ‘dodgy’ health and safety regimes.

Regardless of where people work It’s easy to pick off people from the shop floor, because they may not speak English (and before anyone says whose fault is that – think carefully about how ESOL is being squeezed under the current proposals) may not be aware of their legal entitlements (not forgetting the dramatic proposals to do away wit legal aid currently out for consultation) and maybe just because of the colour of their skin.

Here they go, we hear you cry, the race card. Well lets be clear large majorities of the lowest paid workers in London’s public sector are from, Blaqck, Asian and Minority Ethnic and Refugee communities, but that’s not because of a lack of personal aspiration or intellect, but because its hard to inspire others and aspire yourself when you haven’t got the financial cushion to enable you to take time off work for example to learn English. Yes and some employers do run English courses in the workplace, but how easy is it to take time off in front of you boss and colleagues and say publicly you are different?

Going back to the issue of the fraud.. The act of fraud is possibly still far more costly then stopping people who can and want to work (i.e. asylum seekers) from working.

The workshop at the convention came up with some very useful proposals

• To produce a “bust card”, regarding immigration advice and migrant workers' rights.
• To organise regular legal advice and information sessions on migrants rights
• Reject the slogan British Jobs for British Workers (after all what and who is British in our new era of multiculturalism)
• Holding social & myth busting event on refugees/asylum seekers and migrant workers during refugee week which is 20-26th June 2011

Workers united in a committment to help one another, aka Big Society styley! All done as volunteers, proving yet again that refugees and migrants do have a role to play in the Big Society.
It would appear then that all the rhetoric about chief executives from big business and large scale public sector quangos and agencies being done away with, and efficiency savings being made through rationalising bureaucratic management’s structures was all just a load of hot air, because the real cuts and attacks appear to be starting at the other end of the spectrum, and the people who can afford it the least – is that the muscular liberalism that was being talked about last week?.

UK Day? an answer to the failure of state multiculturalism?

2011-02-07T08:24:00.000Z

So state sponsored multiculturalism, has failed?

It has been an interesting weekend, we have been busy responding to two very different local authorities (Newham and Redbridge) on their Equality and Cohesion Plans and Strategies. Lengthy diatribes to both on how yet even more could be done. Then bang right in the middle you cry what’s it all for?
You would expect us to say that the Prime Minister has got it wrong, and we’re not going to disappoint you on that!. But our reasons for why he has got it wrong are not too do with some woolly left liberalism, (we like the thought of muscular liberalism, if only to help us rearrange the office furniture) but more with the issue of the state itself. It was the same mistake made by the previous government.

The Prime Minister’s speech http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts/2011/02/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference-60293 was a nice attention grabbing headline, giving credence to the EDL as they march through Luton, and the BNP as they protest against the building of a mosque in Barking & Dagenham.

Yet what’s the basis for this claim, and where’s the evidence? As public policy making is so intent on providing evidence to back up its claims its amazing that the Prime Minster was unable to provide one shred of evidence to support the claim other than infer a link with the issue of terrorism. Remember the Place Survey has already been scrapped (which was one of the few indicators we had to check how well communities were getting on). Not perfect but it was better that the alternative which is nothing

I suppose the Prime Minster felt safe saying what he did far away on German shores, and it comes the same week as a report looking at view on immigration from around the world “Transatlantic Trends – Immigration 2010”. http://www.gmfus.org/trends/immigration/2010/
According to which 65% of British respondents viewed immigration as more of a problem than an opportunity (one of the defining features of multiculturalism), a further 58% agreed that immigrants took jobs away from the native-born, and 48% through immigration negatively affects British culture. Yet the immigrant share of the population is only 10.8%, so roughly one in 10 people in the UK is an immigrant.

So what’s the answer, we get people to engage with the mainstream, and certainly that is a very strong feature for many local authorities as they develop their equality and cohesion plans for the forthcoming period.

Two very different local authorities one Labour (Newham) one Coalition (Redbridge) have developed plans that are currently being consulted upon. Newham continues to focus on socio economic duty, despite it not being within the legislative framework since it was ruled out by the Government in October, well done them because poverty does fuel contempt and mistrust. In saying otherwise the Prime Minister’s speech was ignoring the whole issue of INEQUALITY.

Barking and Dagenham meanwhile is keeping itself busy with a more detailed look into the role of different local stakeholders in promoting specifically cohesion. It was reassuring to hear a leading councillor from Barking & Dagenham vehemently say that that they would not be moving away from Cohesion because that was what was needed locally. And that is part of the problem, a bit like the immigration cap, state sponsored multiculturalism and state sponsored criticism of multi culturalism just does not fit.

The issue of multiculturalism comes down to one simple thing ‘do we get on’? Some neighbourhoods are better at it than others. Do new comers, be they from Romania, Somali, Pakistan, Australia, or Manchester fit in?

And so in a perverse way we’re back to square one. The commission for integration and community cohesion set up under the previous government and was set up after 7/7 to discuss the aftermath for all communities post the bombings, ended up going far beyond its initial remit and calling for mainstreaming of integration. And certainly as far as migration issues are concerned integration has become the framework for discussions.

No one is pretending that getting people of different backgrounds to live together in harmony is easy, yet it is also based on a romantic assumption about communities, presuming that there were actually neighbourhoods (pre Big Society) where you could leave your back door open, and if something got stolene it was by one of your own, and justice was met out, outside the rule of law. Children could play out late and not worry, never mind they had more of a chance of getting knocked down by a car!

So what are we left with to promote people of different cultures and backgrounds, oh lets be honest races, living together. Well there is always UK Day, forget the May Day bank holiday that’s pointless. Have a day in the autumn where we can all mull away the day being thankful for the shorter working week (that is those of us left with jobs by then).

The proposal for a UK day is weird, it is state MONO CULTURALISM of a kind: yet who is going to define the UK, the values cited by the Prime minister are actually ethically sound and based on humanitarian principles. But can you really have a party around

• Freedom of speech,

• freedom of worship,

• democracy,

• the rule of law,

• equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality.

In practical terms it means speaking English (so invest in ESOL then) and creating a common culture and sense of belonging. Sorry haven’t we been here before? The Citizenship Test and the findings of post 7/7 the Commission for Integration and Community Cohesion.

So lets suspend out disbelief and suspicions for a minute and take a moment to look at what UK Day may look like.

9am – wake up its, raining (its autumn, cold, damp, given recent winters possibly even a slight flurry of snow) return to bed for an extra hour

10am – you’re awoke by Morris Dancers jangling down every street in the country, like demented court jesters awake sleepy UK residents. That the call to keep ribbon makers in business and so boosting the economy

10.30am a late brunch comprises of the British Banger (with non meat options available of course for vegetarians) a cup of tea (coffee is too foreign)

11.00am – take a walk down to your local canal, river, the sea (or in the case of east London your local burst water pipe) and feel the nautical spirit that rides the waves of the British conscience, look to all the lands conquered and remember with fondness the days of the empire

12noon Time for town halls up and down the country to raise the Union Jack and local dignitaries given out awards for Big Society champions of the year recognising the achievements of those that its is locally politically expedient to recognise

1.00pm – street parties are held up and down the country. Loads of patriotic bunting

2.00pm – The Citizens Service helps everyone clear up. Like a younger version of Dad’s Army, they’ll do anything that is asked as long as it can be done in a two hour slot between signing on and playing on the x box.

3.00pm The Queens Speech focuses on the achievements of Britain throughout the year. Success is measured in comparison to other countries, so we’re far too civilised (or cold) to march on the streets for reform.

4.00pm Reruns of old and new British films, (despite having being invested in by overseas firms)

6.00pm Pubs open with an evening of happy hours

12midnight – pubs closed

Yes we're relying on cultural assumptions and sterotypes - just like the Prime Minsiter in his speech did. And what does that teach us? Answers on a postcard.

Multiculturalism happens in the incidentals, the chance relationships, the coming together of people for other purpose ie through schools, at places of worship (and don’t presume that places of worship are just monolithic either) it can’t be forced indoctrination via actions like UK day

It’s not the state of multi-culturalism we need to worry about… it’s the state itself!

Cooking up a storm on community cohesion

2011-01-28T13:13:00.000Z

There is an interesting dynamic appearing in the Government's thinking around community cohesion. Apparently the general trend is to confine 'community cohesion' to the dustbin and focus instead on 'integration'.

But integrate what, who how and where? If 'integration' is like cooking, then we are in for a serious bout of indegestion, because Government does not have the real ingredients it needs to cook this up properly.

As far as asylum seekers, migrants and refugees are concerned, ‘integration’ requires economic, social and political support. Integration has become a byword for assimilation, but that presumes that there is a set of ‘shared values’, that we have in common, a set of core common standards based on a mutual understanding. Now this is not a discussion about what is Britishness or what it means to be English, Scottish, Welsh or from Northern Ireland. Instead the question is how is it that we choose to define ourselves.

Last week the Migrants Rights Network http://www.migrantsrights.org.uk/blog/2011/01/could-immigration-policy-spell-end-your-local-indian-takeaway highlighted how the points based immigration system could spell the end of the Indian takeway with specialist chefs being excluded from entering the UK under the new points based system. As consumers most people can indeed identify themselves with Indian food, bigger, allegedly, now than fish and chips. But how exotic is Indian food when you get versions in most high street supermarkets (admittedly of varying quality), and when both Delia and Jamie can help you russell one up in 10 minutes flat.
Considering the number of raids by the UK Border Agency that occur in ethnic restaurants - it does give a whole new meaning to the phrase 'Indian Takeaway'.

Do these chefs define themselves as workers (not in the Marxist sense) or as Indian nationals?, as men, (relying again on the old sterotype that Chefs are usually men, and cooks are women – but there is no replacement to your mother' cooking!) by their age, or by their religion?. The answer to each requires a different response to integration.

As workers you integrate by becoming a consumer, by having the economic clout even as an Indian chef to buy a Chinese takeaway. As an Indian national you integrate by understanding English, by understanding the pot pouri of communities locally to where you live in the UK., but you also define yourself by what you are not, you are not a white UK born British national, you are an Indian National and with an Indian passport who may have left behind the only world they know. Let’s not underestimate how difficult it is to up roots and start life over in a new country.

There is a great emphasis in one local authority where we work, on all things ‘intergenerational’, apparently age is the great miscommunicator, fear of the young, underestimation of older people. For asylum seeker, migrant and refugee communities, age divide issues which usually takes literally a generation to appear, materialise far quicker in newly arrived families. Imagine having your child speak and read better English than you, and being your main interface with the outside world.

Now whilst race, ethnicity and nationality are all readily confused by vast sways of the general public, for one and the same, religion is far more easily defined. Again very few people actually define themselves as who they are, and more as what they are not, does that all mean we’re all grossly unhappy? (well that is next week’s discussion happiness and community cohesion).

And so it was with a great measure of relief that one local authority this week bucked the trend for jumping on the policy band wagon and agreed to continue vehemently upholding it’s commitment and its own definition of community cohesion.

No doubt about it Barking & Dagenham has been through a rough time and there are still challenges around the far right locally, but frankly it knows that ‘integration’ as defined by central government just is not going to work, Big Society or no Big Society. Integration also costs money, it also presumes that both new and host communities are ready to engage and it means saying that race, ethnicity and migration are a problem, and someone else’s at that!.

As Anis Nin the French born writer said "We don't see things as they are, we see things as WE ARE".

Big Society in a Small Village...

2011-01-01T19:42:00.001Z

Apparently if you could shrink the earth's population to a village of exactly 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like this:

57 individals would be Asian
21 individuals would be European
8 individuals would be African
14 would be from the Western hemisphere, (both north and south)

52 would be female
48 would be male

70 would be non-white
30 would be white

70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian

89 would be hetrosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 would possess 59% of the collective wealth

80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
1 would have a university education
1 would own a computer

Makes you think...For all the talk about the Big Society (and it is sadly still it is all talk) the real change happens in the day to day 'small' interactions in the village like the 'big' lunch. So the real question for 2011 is, what is this obsession with size, why does everything have to be so BIG? Any answers...

RAMFEL's 2011 Predictions

2010-12-31T23:01:00.005Z

So what do the stars hold for asylum, immigration, the Big Society and the new foot soldiers of the Civil Society? (community and voluntary groups to you and me).

January 2011 will see immigration blamed for the continuing extreme cold weather. Never mind that most people come from warmer climates that are themselves disintegrating rapidly. Burst pipes will as the thaw sets in also be blamed on asylum seekers and immigrants, but this time perversely because so few of them will be prepared to ‘volunteer’ to fix them aka Big Society style

February will be Big Society Month, not only will there be a range of ‘topical’ conferences and conversations but national and local government would have thought about how and where to wield the axe - so all of a sudden everything will be an opportunity for volunteering and developing and repacking yourself as a good neighbour

March as a wave of redundancies hit the public, community and voluntary sector more people will have the time to be good neighbours. As cuts to policing continue everybody who is anybody will volunteer to be a neighbourhood watch coordinator. The UK Border Agency will see this as an opportunity to ‘smoke out illegals’ and will find the money to reward neighbourhood watch coordinators who report people. After all everybody needs good neighbours!
National Census day will cause a general hiatus of concern when its discovered that some communities simply aren’t engaging.

April – as there will be more people unemployed than employed, day time television will get a radical revamp, with programmes sponsored by Poundland. The net figures for immigration will be published and there will be confusion as to whether this means the points based system is or is not working. The Government will finally realise that it can’t clear its backlog of 400,000 cases by June 2011 as promised, and rumours will circulate about the possibility of an amnesty. No one however will be able to make a decision and the issue will be fudged with half hearted and complex compromises and overtaken by celebrations for the Royal Wedding.

May – Government will need to think about the EU again. Continued enlargement and the end of rules for A8 nationals will mean that the government will need to think about setting up some very complex procedures to marshal numbers into new categories that distort the real benefits of migration.

June - Seeing the success and positive results of investing in TV programming, all the 99p shops in the country come together to sponsor Little Asylum Seeker, in the Big Country - the new reality programme where 32 nationalities come together to win the votes of viewers for leave to remain in the country. Guardian readers are initially horrified by the thought but consider it an exciting anthropological celebration of modern culture(s), Telegraph readers will tut and are suitably outraged in the mistaken belief that their licence fee is paying for the programme.

July – Extreme hot weather will be blamed on asylum seekers, this time because there was not enough people to build fans and install air conditioning systems. London will start yet another count down to the Olympics for 2012, and celebrate and market its multiculturalism abroad, whilst ignoring it at home.

August – those that can afford it will go on holiday, those that can’t will be asked to arrange for their own holiday at the end of their street where a community run ice cream van staffed by volunteers will be made available. People will marvel at their home grown sun tans, and question the validity of ever needing to go abroad again, and so bring forth the end of the recession with an increase in consumer spending.

September – There will be a general feeling that the worse of the recession is over, and government agencies and local government will start planning for the future. But having found the Big Society can be done on the cheap, and as far as the evidence is concerned no one’s death can actually be attributed to the Big Society, cut backs will continue.

October - After 16 weeks of high drama the winner of Little Asylum Seeker in the Big Country is announced. They are interviewed by the Daily Mail who using an undercover investigator dressed as a Sheikh discover that actually the imaginary Sheikhs’ imaginary family is from the same town as the winner but has never heard of them. The winner is deported, this time not by Group4 but a team of volunteers who have been drafted in to fly a specially charted plane.

November – a doctor who has overstayed on his work permit and then volunteered at the hospital where he used to work is found to have made a ground breaking discovery that finds a cure for the common cold. His discovery and hard work is awarded with a deportation order. There is public unrest as people say ‘this one can stay’ and that he is vital to supporting work in the run up to the annual flu epidemic. Alas, all the protests are in vein and he is detained in detention centre with his two children (with the Government rebranding childrens centres as Sure Immigration Centres, with an obvious emphasis on child care!)

December – Christmas is cancelled because Santa Claus (despite being originally a Dutch national, is now a secondary migrant, who has been habitually resident at the North Pole) cannot get entry clearance to the UK. Under the points based system his reindeer get more points than him!.

The above is purely for entertainment. However as last years events at RAMFEL have proven stranger things have happened….
You don’t always need the power of second sight or be up with zeitgeist to predict the future, sometimes all you need is the courage to speak out.
Happy New Year one and All.

2010 the Year when it became acceptable to be a Racist

2010-12-31T07:43:00.000Z

In looking back over 2010 one issue stands out, this was the year when it became acceptable to have racist views. Disliking people because of their nationality, race and ethnicity was sanctioned by all the political parties as they reduced all discussions down to the difference between the have and have nots.

Obviously the focus nationally was on the general election. As Don Flynn from the Migrants Rights Network quite rightly pointed out ‘immigration was the dog that never barked’.

It has been said by many national and local politicians that ‘immigration’ was an issue on the doorstep. Maybe, maybe not, but who made it so, the media frenzy surrounding immigration was a convenient hook for politicians of all political persuasions to hang their coat on. There were very few alternative scenarios that explained either the reality of asylum and immigration, or it’s benefits. Where was the CBI pre the announcement of the immigration cap?, conveniently mute on the subject. Happily though the JCWI (Joint Council for Welfare of Immigrants) has just got a ruling from the court saying that the immigration cap is biased.

What positive stories were featured were confined to the like of the Guardian and alternative media and of course X Factor and Gamu.

When it is said that immigration was an issue on the doorstep, (presuming that people had doorstep, because all these ethnics hadn’t taken over their homes) a question very few people asked was whose doorsteps?. We remember Rochdale women not for her crudeness but her ‘reasonable’ anger and suspicion towards Eastern Europeans. You don’t have tea and biscuits with racists, you challenge and provoke them into a discussion.

However the national defeat of the BNP offered an amazing sanctuary and distraction from such views. Collectively there was a sigh of relief, getting rid of the BNP represented an opportunity to say ‘we’re not that bad’ and also further stoked the fire that legitimised racism.

Some of you out there will be saying, get real, people have legitimate concerns, and what is your answer? (we'll say more about solutions tomorrow). On one occasion this year on a blog posting we were described as being unrealistic on the issue and bias. Come and spend an hour at RAMFEL and then tell us we’re being unrealistic, and if we’re bias we’re proud to be basis. In fact its our constitutional right to be right, we’d be doing a major disservice if we were not bias.

The National Asylum Model and decision making system has continued to work at its own pace, switching between incompetence, going even slower and grinding to a halt. We still have clients that have been asked for the final stages of proof for their asylum claim over a year ago and are still waiting for a decision, and that is still after waiting for an outcome for 12 years. As regular readers of this blog will know that means living in limbo with no money, no opportunity to work or study. We have just had the telling statement that as from 2012 English classes will only be available for ‘settled’ community, and requirements for English will focus on ensuring those that enter from outside Europe are proficient.

We end the year with Migration Watch claiming net immigration is on the up, and the Government acting like a hassled mum on the first day of school, as it tries to make the immigration cap fit.

Let us not forget that it was the Government that curtailed the full implementation of the Equality Act, that withdrew funding from the Migrant Impact Fund (although surprisingly the charges that were paying for this from increases in visa applications have remained), and collectively 32 London boroughs via a consortium called London Councils have chosen to ‘repatriate’ money given centrally to the community and voluntary sector back to the boroughs, but with no assurances that the money will stay within the community and voluntary sector.

Locally in East London petitions were fuelled against the Roma community, half hearted attempts were made at integration. Old models based on 1970s community development worked in the 1970s when all you were challenging were white on black racism. It doesn’t quite work here and now in an era of super diversity where the real challenge for racism is not black on white, but the multicultural and intergenerational potential of tension and conflict.

In some parts of London it also became the year when institutionalised racism was allowed to ripen like rotting fruit. No number of equality impact assessments could have allowed the sheer thoughtlessness of some public sector agencies. Yes and I’ll forever being paying for the comment. There was the petition against the Roma community, failure to celebrate and mark Black History Month beyond the usual murmurings of slavery, further marginalisation of the Somali community, and a complete abdication of responsibility to reach out to some of the most vulnerable sections of the community.
Alongside which we have the run up to the Olympics that includes everyone except asylum seekers. To be a London Ambassador or take part in the Personal Best programme you have to have ‘status’. You would have thought that language skills would be one area that could be supported.

So what do we have to look forward to for 2011, well we’ll leave the ranting and moaning behind for later when we reveal RAMFEL’s mystic predictions for 2011!

The Azure Payment Card - Greta Edwards (RAMFEL Trustee)

2010-11-22T01:58:00.000Z

There are several thousands of individuals and families who have been refused asylum, but who are still given shelter and financial support by the UKBA (United Kingdom Border Agency), as because they are not allowed to work, they would otherwise be destitute. As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, the British Government must support such people, either until they are returned to their own country, or until a decision is made on any fresh application they have made.

However the UKBA does this in a way that that it hopes will

1. deter people from coming here to seek asylum;

2. persuade these people to go back voluntarily to their own countries.

The strategy it uses is to provide financial support only in the form of a card - an "azure payment card " - which is topped up automatically weekly with £35 per person, and can be used only in certain large chain stores, but which does not allow the recipients access to cash.

Living without cash is hugely frustrating, as it causes persistent problems. Here are some of them.

You or a family member become very ill out of surgery hours and the only source of advice is the hospital outpatients department: but you have no cash to travel there!

You urgently need to see your solicitor to discuss a letter the UKBA has sent you, because the letter gives you a dead-line to reply; but you have no cash to travel there!

The church, mosque, or gudwara you want to go to - because you are lonely and depressed and need the company of friends - is not in walking distance: but you have no cash to travel there!

The supermarket where you present your card has not seen it before and won't accept it, and your English is not good enough to know how to convince them. The nearest other supermarket you could try is a long way away: but you have no cash to travel there!

The washing machine has broken down - or there isn't one in the house - and you have to use a laundrette, or your children must wear dirty clothes and sleep in dirty sheets: but you have no cash for the machines!

These are just a few of the problems of living without cash. The UKBA say Section 4 support, as it is known, is meant to be only short term support, as refused asylum seekers are expected to go back. However, many have failed because they have not had legal representation - which is now less and less available - or because they are still trying to get vital documents which will prove their case, or because the judgement itself was flawed. In many cases there is very little likelihood of them being sent back because of the difficulty of obtaining travel documents for them, or because of political upheaval in their country.

As was said earlier, the UKBA hopes to deter people from seeking asylum here, and to persuade those still here to return. But this hope is merely what it is - just a hope - as there is no researched evidence that this is what actually happens. Moreover, most of the refugees concerned come from countries where the human rights abuses are so bad that they will bear any conditions here rather than risk what might happen to them if they return.

Please write to your M.P. and describe to him how difficult life is for asylum seekers who have no access to cash, and stress that there is no proof that a cash-less system of support deters people from coming or encourages them to leave. Ask him to pass your letter to Damien Green M.P. the Minister of State for Immigration, and to support your request to Mr. Green to propose the change in legislation needed to enable the provision of cash support to all refused asylum seekers until they are either given status or returned to their country of origin.

The selfish side of the Big Society - me, myself and I

2010-11-14T21:06:00.001Z

This week the news has been full of stories about Lavinia Olmazu, the community activist who used defrauded the benefits system of £2.9 million. For the purposes of this discussion it is of little consequence which community Lavinia represented. What is more interesting is her ability to beguile everyone from the Home-Office to numerous local authorities as the authentic voice and advocate for a community of people who are continually being overlooked and ignored.

Lavinia and her partner were extremely active in one of the boroughs in which RAMFEL works in, even operating out of the same building as us. People have remarked this week on RAMFEL’s eerily predictive powers of foresight, yet you didn’t need to be mystic meg to notice that anyone who was giving benefits advice legitimately really wouldn’t leave clients files lying around, wouldn’t disappear for long periods of time, fail to make meetings, and be totally uncontactable either by phone, email or telepathy!.

Yet it is hard for any voluntary group to try and speak out in defence of quality of the sector without it looking like a mass ‘bitching’ session. We had concerns we did alert people to them, but perhaps no one realised the full consequences and people chose to ignore.

Commentators on the Lavinia case can be conveniently broken down into two groups, those who believe that this she has been the victim of a large scale conspiracy against the community she represent, and those that believe she is guilty. There are also others - we are aware of at least two other organisations at the moment where led by very vocal, seemingly altruistic individuals, we have serious concerns. Little things like web photos seeking to represent their service users are actually drawn from an American website, claims to have undertaken projects and work that simply hasn’t been done.

To any lay outsider such community activists would be the epitome of the Big Society - active, effective community organisers, who yes may cream a little of the top to make ends meet but work for the good of the community. After all in the new world of the Big Society community organisers will need to fundraise for their own jobs, maybe Lavinia was an early pioneer!

Whilst the common fear is that the Coalition government ill thought out Big Society will lead to a band of new social entrepuners, there is no cure for that sickly churning feeling of exploitation of the most vulnerable that this may also lead to. Where are the checks and balances?, community development and community work takes a specific set of skills and abilities.

One of the reasons why RAMFEL has so many contenscious issues to challenge is because some of our colleagues from the public sector often don’t understand the basic rudiments of community development. Yes, more may now be forced to volunteer as part of the Big Society, and some do already offer their professional skills to management committees and board, but that is not the same as the day in day hussle and bussle of community work.

For far too long whether in the third sector or the realm of politics, especially local government, anyone representing a marginalised community (i.e. Black, Asian or minority ethnic) has usually been encouraged into seeking, and fast tracked into elected office. Naively the suggestion has been that such individuals can better connect with marginalised sections of the electorate and better represent their views because they share a common concern and experience. Such naivety ignores amongst other issues, the intergenerational issues between first, second, third generation Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, and in particular the fact that BAME communities are not all alike, - “We don’t all look the same”, and we definitely don’t all act the same...

Cagney and Lacey do English (Mind you we aint got the best grammar)

2010-11-05T15:22:00.000Z

Well everyone we have made it to the end of our reading on An Evidence Base on Migration and Integration in London By Oxford University. Mind you we have spent all these weeks reading this and we still have more questions but we hope people keep talking about this.

We know that we aint the best people to give our views, me with my cockney speaking and Danielle not getting all the big words, we are giving our opinion on it. Here goes.

English is not always asylum seekers and Refugees best language, and some find it extremely hard to communicate with people who do, but if they had to learn it maybe they would benefit more.

Some can’t wait to learn a new language and be able to communicate with people from outside their communities, when going to the jobcentre, etc. What happens if they aint giving information on ESOL classes or English classes like ours at Ramfel’s? Well they wouldn’t be offered an interrupter, so who would translate for them at appointments etc. We have clients at Ramfel that are learning English. They are able to arrange appointments by themselves, able to communicate when in shops; they are even able to report crimes to the police if needed to. But imagine how you would feel, if you just arrived in the UK, don’t speak English and everyone else does. I would feel scared, lonely and wounding how I would cope. I wouldn’t even feel safe to talk to the police.

The study shows ‘Fluency in English increases the average hourly occupational wage by 20%’. So learning English would help them for jobs. It also showed that ‘having better language skills receive more benefit from an additional year of education (in terms of the wages earned).

Changes made in legislation since 2007 have reduced entitlements to free ESOL classes. Mainly because it cost too much, but how are they excepted to learn once they have status in the UK to find a job and get the help when needed?

The most interesting part of what I have read on English in this study was that ‘Free ESOL is now only available to those receiving means-tested benefits’ and this has a restriction mainly women, low paid workers or part-time workers, overstayers and people with pending decisions on their case. So where would they go to learn? If it weren’t for charities that provide English classes for free, to give that important next step in helping them feel belonged and welcome within the communities, they would be lost.

Well we can finally say we have CLOSED OUR CASE on Migration and Integration in London, it has been an interesting experience and a great opportunity to read and review this study, not only that, but it has given us a chance to give our views and how we feel on matters that people wouldn’t know about. We would like to thank you’s all for keeping posted, and for the comments people left last week. That put a smile on our faces!!!

Also a massive thanks to Rita, who kindly gave up writing the blog for a couple of weeks. Cagcey and Lacey are on hand for your next blogging challenge. 

Cagney and Lacey on tour still with Migration and Integration in London.

2010-10-29T06:17:00.000+01:00

Well guys, another week has pass, I know everyone looks forward to a Friday, for our blog but you’s never left us COMMENTS again.
Disappointed!!! But we are soldiers and will carry on without your feedback.

So anyway, this week we have an interesting topic for ya’s, Housing….

Asylum seekers and Refugees have many barriers within housing. Many are homeless, and generally less likely to have become owner occupiers.

People say that migrants come here and get better homes, even bigger homes, but do we all believe that? Well we don’t. As we know by working at Ramfel, this aint the case. Some people have no money for deposits, so where do they live? On the streets. If they can get a deposit they have to pay all that then have no money for furniture and other things that you need when moving into a home.
Remember these people are scared, lonely and having no where to live, imagine how they feel. Even if they are getting Nass support there accommodation is 9 times out of 10 in a run down room. Like we said last week, most have bed bugs which don’t help their health. We know that some migrants come here and stay with friends and family but the others don’t. Some aint even entitled to public support at all.

That Oxford study thing which we're still reading said ‘A significant number of Labour migrants live in accommodation provided by employers and tied to jobs’. We see a lot of that at Ramfel, people who live where they work and their boss hangs on to their passport and papers.

This is often in very poor conditions and overcrowded. Some can also be at risk of fire.
Just like opposite our office. When me and Lacey first started at Ramfel, we were told about a fire that happened just across the road. A Flat above a shop was occupied by 3 asylum seekers. Unfortunately two died and the other person managed to survive. It was because a fire started whilst they were sleeping, they had no smoke alarms. Could you imagine being trapped in a small flat like that? I can’t. And one of the men that died had only one friend and it was the other man that died, so they couldn’t identify him, as the only person who could died aswell. As I understand he didn’t have no-one in this country (family or friend).

The study shows that ‘there is no evidence to suggest that new migrants have any advantage when it comes to accessing social housing’. They do however identify a range of factors like supply and demand for social housing, which could affect a range of different backgrounds. Most migrants are in short term accommodation for long periods. This puts a barrier up for them when engaging with social networks and stops the being able to build up a sense of trust.

People mistake migrants, believing they jump ahead on the housing queue, and are entitled to all benefits, but hopefully we have made it clear they don’t, and that they actually live in poorer conditions then animals.

Keep all this in mind for the next migrant you read about or see homeless on the street, it aint all roses for them.

Next week is our last week Rita says for a while, and we're going to be looking at how they teach foreign born people English
LEAVE COMMENTS PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!! And if you don't subscribe to the blog this week we ain't gonna send it to autimatically anymore, it might get on some peoples nerves.

Cagney and Lacey On the case of Health and Social Care!!!

2010-10-22T13:02:00.000+01:00

So this week we are giving you our thoughts on Health and Social Care.

Asylum seekers, refugees and migrants face loads of issues within the health care, system. They have restrictions on their entitlements, language barriers and can have probs understanding appointments and medication etc.

The Oxford boffins reckon that “Evidence suggests that there is a lack of robust data comparing migrant’s health to that of the rest of the UK or London Population. The Audit Commission reports that the post 2004 A8 migrants have had little impact on health service demand.”

People reckoned that the migrants would take up and use the NHS more than others, but what most people don’t realise is that some people who come over on a visitors visa and the like they do actually have to pay.

The only point I have to raise is why should some people go into hospital and end up with a huge bill when they leave. We know its about money and who pays for things, but what happens to the human rights act? No matter where these people are from or even if they haven’t got status in the UK, why aint they given help from the NHS.

The people who face barriers within the NHS the most, are failed asylum seekers and people who aint entitled to public funds. As the evidence shows “they are entitled to emergency care and primary care,” but the access to primary care is limited by the GPs. They decide whether to register them, as most surgeries would want to see their immigration status. But what about the overstayer’s when they are ill?

We know this is a true fact as one of our clients had cancer. She was 46 and had a small young boy of 7. As she didn’t have status in the UK, She was giving treatment to an extent, always being discharged from hospital and then being admitted again. Then one day we received a call that alarmed us and personally upset us all in Ramfel, to hear a women (who has only been given half of the treatment she should have got), was being taking in a ambulance to the detention centre where they were just gonna leave a women with cancer. How could this happen? Our famous Cheryl Kerr got to work and had them take her back to hospital where she needed to be, not being placed in detention. It weren’t until a top dog at queens hospital pointed out the real fact, this women was a human, she still has a right to be treated to all the treatment she needed and the support. But it was too late, the cancer took a hold of her and she passed away a few weeks later, leaving her small boy without a mother. She had no family in this country only a friend who is now apply for guardianship of the young boy, so he will be safe. Don’t take away the point he was only 7 and has got the rest of his life to grow up but without his mother love and support.

We were all truly upset over this and hope this would never happen again.

What about Maternity? Do they all understand there appointments, what scans are for? Na, I bet they don’t. The Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths in the UK in 2003-2005 found that Black African mothers in England had a nearly a six times greater risk of dying than white mothers. Most of these deaths have been asylum seekers and refugees and most of them couldn’t speak English. 9-10 times, they don’t attend antenatal classes and tend to make bookings late. Should all these things be made easier for them to understand to at least try and save their own lives or even there babies

There are many health issues will see on a weekly basis with clients that come into us. When the asylum seekers are waiting for a decision from the Home Office regarding their status sometimes they are given NASS accommodation, which is pretty dire. It makes their healths worse. Especially when they are in run down homes, rooms full with bed bugs and there bodies are covered in bites from them.

One client had a serious case of this. We reported it to the NASS (National Asylum Support Service) to see if they could move her but nothing. Her landlord took ages to rid of them and she was covered from head to toe in these bites and even though she had medication for these bites, it didn’t have enough to work until she got more. Finally after weeks of living in a room with these, the landlord finally did something.

Many of our clients also get so upset while they are waiting for a decision it makes their health worse, they have to come to us for food once a week. and sometimes where they live the people there won’t allow then to cook. We have people come to RAMFEL who get depressed and cry because they are so ill. The government says all this stuff about eating fresh fruit and vegetables and so you don’t get ill, where do you get that from if you ain’t got no money.

What people also forget is that most of the doctors and nurses that are here are also migrants, and that back in the day they actually helped build the NHS.

So do you all agree with us that no matter if these people was or wasn’t born in the UK should be given the same access to medical help as British people? Well we do, we still have a duty to help, not leave people ill or dieing just cause they aint entitled to public funds.

Now we have a massive bone to pick with you’s all. You read our blog, you talk about us (Rita tell us, when she attends meetings people ask about Cagney and Lacey.), so why aint you’s showing us support and leave some comments. How we doing at all this blogging? Or should we hang our boots up????? Plz plz plz lets us know.

Cagney and Lacey go undercover to look at Policing and Community Safety

2010-10-15T12:22:00.000+01:00

We return with our thought on Community Safety and Community Cohesion. We know it was meant to be Health and Social Care, but our priorities have changed. Don’t worry we will get back to that next week. We hope you enjoyed our last blog, we did try!!! Sorry guys its a long one this week.

We would like to start off by saying how crazy it can be at Ramfel. We never know what’s going to happen, each week is a start of something new and that’s why we love working at Ramfel.

Well firstly we would like to start off by saying there is no evidence (remember we are talking about the Oxford study, me and Lacey are still reading it) that suggest higher crime rates are due to the increased of migration population. A8 and A2 hasn’t lead to higher crime but does create some issues with policing. There are a lot of misunderstandings due to language issues. The police need to use interpreters more to help ensure that everyone understands and all issues are dealt with in the correct way.

Asylum seekers and Refugee’s have often been known to be victims hate crimes or exploitation in the workplace. Being bullied even within their own communities. There are lots of barriers for these people. They have a lack of confidence in the police (and 9 out of 10 of the people we asked this morning coming to our English class see a uniform and are scared), when they report crimes they don’t always get dealt with. Most are scared to report crimes in case it causes more trouble for them within their own communities. When they report crimes, how many cases actually get dealt with in the correct manner? Some of them don't have police back home like us here. they don't have coppers walking up and down or even community support offices. Some of the people who come into Ramfel tells us that where they came from the police was actually the army as well. Bit scary.

And your never guess what happen this week, You might have read about it in the papers and seen it on the news but the old bill had to go and raid some houses because they thought children were being trafficked. And it all happened a couple of streets away from our office. There was a lot of arg about whether Ramfel should have been told or not. It don’t really matter now it’s abit to late but what we are saying is that not all people are bad and that the police, the council and the hospitals all they have to say to people that whoever they are and whatever they have done they are still there for them.

Most migrants stick to there own communities as they feel safe among people from there own countries. They feel scared to mix with others incase they are targeted. Its sad really to think these people come here to get away from some nasty things that happen in their own countries, and when they get here some are treated worse then at home. Look at the man that died at Heathrow only this week, while getting deported back to he’s own country. He died of a heart attack. Now we aint putting the blame onto anyone but how does this just happen? Yes we know heart attacks can just come on, but imagine if he got angry and upset about having to go back and he kicked off and started panicking and got so scared that it brought on a heart attack. Will the truth come out? Because it will get put in the papers as another Asylum seekers or Refugee trying their hardest not to get on the plane, but sometimes that aint the case. Sometimes they actually want to go home but sometimes home is where they already are.

On a different note, we had the opportunity to take part and volunteer for an operation which saw us (Ramfel), the old bill and many other volunteers from various organisations that we work along side, to help rough sleepers on the street within Redbridge. Following the tragic death of a rough sleeper not so long ago in Ilford, we opened Ramfel’s centre, cooked hot food and ensured there was advice areas set up so when we found some rough sleepers we could help them with immigration matters, Housing, Benefits and the other major one HEALTH, but most of all a friendly person to chat to and warmth.

We all got split into to groups, me and Danielle felt like we was Cagney and Lacey for real, apart from the guns. We never actually found any rough sleepers while we were out looking, but the other groups did. We had a little banter with the two coppers that came with us on patrol thou. When we went back to the centre, there was a gentleman called ‘Mr Brown’, which only wanted to speak to a cockney and who better than me, my colleagues did try but he wouldn’t tell them any information about himself. I gave it a go and to everyone delight he opened up to me. He had just been released from hospital had no home to go to, had a terrible prob with he’s heath and needed to take medication. He medication never got explained to him properly and I ensured that he knew when to take it and even how much. I wrote on all he’s medication boxes so he would know. I could have stayed talking to ‘Mr Brown’ all-night, it made me feel proud of what ramfel and the other volunteer’s did that night. It was a life changing experience for me and Danielle and a sense of achievement that we had help some of the rough sleepers in Redbridge.

Like we said its been an odd week but when aint it.

P.S We sent out an invite to Annual General Meeting which Rita’s says is something we have to do every flaming year and if people would like to come, they need to let us know so we order enough grub. Monday 25th October 2010 from 6.30pm-8.30pm here at Cardinal Heenan Centre. Give us a bell on 02084784513 or send us an e-mail at info@ramfel.org.uk.

Cagney and Lacey try and understand migration and integration in London

2010-10-08T15:40:00.002+01:00

Over the next couple of weeks I and Danielle will be giving you our opinion on the evidence that Oxford University http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/research/everyday/an-evidence-base-on-migration-and-inegration-in-london/ have done to support the Mayor of London’s Refugee Integration Strategy.

Firstly even thou me and Danielle don’t get all these big words, we’ll do our best, and then maybe more people will also talk about these things. Like we said before we didn’t know much about refugees and the like until we started working at RAMFEL, and this evidence is also making us ask more questions, like whats A8? and cohesion?.

Well A8 is people who joined Europe after the others like in 2004. They were from eight countries in eastern Europe, forget where for now, but you can google them yourselves. And then cohesion is that glue that holds the community together, I like that one, Cheryl told us that.

Basically this evidence shows that there are differences between the way migrants and refugees and people who have got their papers are treated. At the end of the report it shows how everyone should be given ‘chances for all’, in other words everyone should be treated equally.

Also, have you been watching X factor? I now this might seem abit random but Gamu Nhengu needs our support people. What her and her family have been put through since her being on telly is disgusting and frankly totally wrong. Personally if she hadn’t had gone on the telly the UK Border Agency wouldn’t have even looked at her mum’s immigration status.

Should that stop her doing what she loves, and obviously what she is good at?

No… immigration officials had refused to approve the family’s latest visa application, because her mum Nokutula claimed state benefits, which she was technically not entitled to. Nokutula is planning to appeal against a bid to deport her family.

Are they quick to act like this when its not a person who hasn’t appeared on a singing competition that’s on telly, I bet not.!!!

As we (Ramfel) are in a position where Gamu and her family could use our help, I wrote to her. Some might say that’s going abit to far but in my eyes she is just like our clients that come to the office for our help. I explained to her what Ramfel does and if she needs help, she has all our information and contact details to help her in this sad time.

Each week we will be talking about a certain topic, next week our issue will be ‘Heath and Social Care’, where we will be talking about how non UK residents have less access to medical care and lack of information on everything, due to English not being their first language.

Keep posted for next week issue on ‘Heath and Social Care’

Love and Marriage - A New Generation of Voluntary Sector & Public Sector Partnerships in the Big Society

2010-10-01T08:05:00.001+01:00

One of the challenges of this blog is that it goes to such a cross section of people with such a diverse range of reasons for being interested. We now have over 100 people signed up as subscribers, so do feel free to join in. There are some that read to be informed, others to monitor and track what will be our latest rant and others to have a laugh.

Well without further introduction, this week’s issue is PARTNERSHIPS between the public and voluntary sector.

The current financial climate has led to the development of some truly unholy alliances. Partnership working is an overused and commonly misunderstood phrase, it is hollow rhetoric that means very little. For Black, Asian and Refugee organisations there is the added danger that it becomes a self full filling rhetoric that keeps organisations small and subservient to their funders.

As this week began, it was quite clear that the compulsion to forge partnerships between voluntary organisations in civil society and the public sector would send this organisation over the edge, into a spiral of cynical discontent.

For one reason or the other by Wednesday we had to have meetings with two local authorities on four separate issues, as well as the NHS and the Police.

Let’s take each in turn

Local councils – are all nervously waiting for budget setting process and the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review, and can’t really decide on anything for 2011/2012 until at least January 2011. Business as usual as much as possible. What is interesting in terms of local authorities is how they spend their time during the intervening period, and in particular what they choose to consult on. As said elsewhere on this blog there is an assortment of special select committees and consultations looking around the edges of whats happening, too scared to dive into the real problems.

The NHS – interesting, all the right words, but possibly in the wrong order. The Health White paper has allowed health authorities to abdicate their responsibilities for the here and now. Everything is dependent on the review, and a plethora of consultations. http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_117353 As one member of Barking and Dagenham BAME Forum put it this week, "what this means is that people are dieing while consultations are happening". GP commissioning is a brave new world that no one it appears wants responsibility for. And meanwhile the fight over the public health portfolio, a poisoned chalice, that neither local authorities or health authorities really want.

Police – a bit more straightforward than most other public sector partners, yet the real challenge is the suggestion of the new localism, how much more localism do we need, neighbourhood teams, area committees, neighbourhood panels, short of having a police personnel on every street corner stationed in a temporary Tardis there is very little more that can be done.

But amongst all of this there is also the need for a new form of local political leadership. A leadership that is prepared to take risks and prepared to make suggestions, and that doesn’t abdicate its responsibility, that holds local public services to account. How many elected members (regardless of political complexion) have read the Big Society, Big Government. Common wisdom has made it popular folklore and a guiding blue print for central government. Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of equality or cohesion, or even the vacumless concept of diversity. The new Equality Act that comes in force today, 1st October, omits what is really needed right now, the duty on public sector partners to promote socio-economic equality. Some forward thinking local authorities have included it in their plans, others have chosen to ignore it deliberately.

So maybe in light of the above, the old marriage vows between public sector funders and voluntary organisations need to be rewritten, especially in line with the proposed new ‘refreshed’ COMPACT, http://www.compactvoice.org.uk/sites/default/files/resources/20100920_renewed_compact_draft.pdf we would suggest something as follows:

Registrar: Do you Public Sector partner take this voluntary sector organization to be your lawful funded partner?. Do you promise to supply them with ever shortened and non COMPACT compliant deadlines? To engage with them as you see fit, dropping them when they become too demanding or critical, but using them nonetheless to meet your targets?

Public Sector – I do subject to a call in period and budgetary constraints that will not be known to me until after the Comprehensive Spending Review and then may still not be actualized depending on long the decision making process takes in my organization until early 2011

Registrar: And do you voluntary sector agency, promise to go mission adrift in the search of ever more innovative ways of increasing your funding to simply sustain your existing services. Do you promise to continue to ride a range of hobby horses until they are fit for the knackers yard. Do you promise to honor and obey the funder, meet targets and deliver outcomes as opposed to outputs, adapt to ever changing monitoring forms with irrelevant questions that are ignored in the final analysis.

Voluntary Sector: I do, subject to me being allowed to complain relentlessly that no matter how much funding you give me it is not enough.

and at the point of exchanging Service Level agreements
'With my funding I forego all my independence,
all that I am you may use and count towards your targets, and all that I had has now gone in meeting your shortfall in funding and subject to the repatriation of funding by London Council to the boroughs;

Registrar: Within the love of the COMPACT,Strategic partnerships, and the Big Society. I now pronounce you co- conspirators in civil society.

Cynics – us?

Next week the return of Barking & Dagenham’s favourite Cagney and Lacey as they look afresh at the Mayor of London’s Refugee Integration Strategy...you have been warned!

The Real Big Society in Action

2010-09-24T06:35:00.000+01:00

When all the rhetoric and conceit that accompanies the world of public policy is stripped bare it is clear to see that actually what is left is very little. You can have all the initiatives in the world, but if you haven’t got the passion, enthusiasm and commitment of good people then it is all meaningless.

Last week, we appealed for support for what was officially known as Operation Reach, and what we renamed locally as Initiative Reach. A London wide bid through which the Metropolitan Police were charged with addressing the issue of ‘rough sleepers’.

Those cynics amongst us may well believe that was a crude attempt at window dressing in the run by to the Olympics in 2012, others may believe that it was a covert operation for tracking ‘illegal immigrants’.

In actual fact this was a rare moment of inspired partnership working that really did work, and wasn’t just used to tick boxes. Where people were united around a shared sense of empathy and compassion. It was a moment when no one talked about money or bemoaned a lack of resources, but chose instead to come together to talk about what they could do to support the homeless and homeless agencies like the amazing team at the Welcome Centre who have for years relentlessly battled on, true to their own opinions and with very little money.

The Police took a risk and entrusted the local community and voluntary sector with knowing and doing what they do best - working with the vulnerable and most marginalised. Some would say RAMFEL took a risk in trusting the police. We continue to have concerns as to whether this is the beginning of an organised plan of attack by central government on migration, in which the police are unwitting stooges. You only have to look at the current consultation on policing http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/consultations/policing-21st-century/ to see how community policing in areas of high migration could be seriously compromised.

We asked for help and what a response! We were inundated with support and donations. With less than a week to plan and organise, more that 40 volunteers came together across two nights to offer and befriend 22 street sleepers in Redbridge.

Now some could be helped with housing, and some could not. Some needed help with other things like managing their dependency on alcohol and drugs, others needed help with getting access to health services, some needed advice on their immigration status, and others just wanted someone new to talk to.

What was amazing about this week as well as the fact that out of the 22 people we saw at least 16 could be helped to find a way out of their current predicament, was that people who never met before or, worked together, not only got to know each other, but also worked together without complaint and with good humour. Apart from people's time how much did this all cost, around £200.00. A good investment of time, money and energy.

There was no sense of pity the poor homeless, there was a lot of rage against the machine and bureaucracy that appears to exist to make life more difficult than need be. Suggestions that the UK Border Agency are being helpful in providing ‘assistance and advice’ to individuals through agencies making money from encouraging repatriation need to be challenged, as does the failure to provide people with free independent advice (also under threat in the forthcoming Legal Aid Review).

Outside of the immigration issue - it should not take 3 phone calls to social services to get help for a 16 year old found alone and shivering on the streets of Redbridge, nor should hospitals on discharging a 71 year old fail to explain to him how to take his medication properly.

It comes as a shock to many that leafy, affluent, well to do Redbridge does have problems, that there are those who are homeless and living in absolute poverty. Regular readers of this blog will know that RAMFEL is not renown for our flattering comments about public services, however this time full credit where credit is due, and thank you in particular to the London borough of Redbridge Housing Services, Redbridge Metropolitan Police, as well as Redbridge Council for Voluntary Services and the numerous volunteers prepared to go that extra mile.

Thank You.

Reaching Out: Emergency appeal for volunteers and donations

2010-09-16T02:00:00.000+01:00

Last week's blog talked about poverty and the serious issue of destitution. This week we are appealing for volunteers to help make a genuine and lasting difference to the lives of homeless individuals.

Next week the Met police in a capital wide campaign will be targeting rough sleepers in London as part of what will be called Operation Reach.

RAMFEL is concerned that such work should not be seen as a punitive or enforcement issue especially when targeting those with immigration issues. Having received assurances from the local police in Redbridge that this is a genuine attempt at supporting individuals, and in partnership with other local agencies, we will be offering throughout two nights Tuesday and Thursday
1. free legal advice with accredited and qualified asylum and immigration advisers
2. health and social care advice
3. befriending support

We are looking for volunteers and donations:

Volunteers particularly with language skills (Eastern European, Asian and French), to help manage reception, provide catering support, genuinely talk to and befriend people, and go out on patrol with the police.
We are also looking for volunteers with specialist skills including qualified health practitioners, and barbers.
So if you or someone you know can help please do pass the message on. We appreciate that this is very short notice, but we have also just received notice of the initiative.
Volunteers need not commit to the whole night and can do hours to suit. At this stage we have no way of knowing the volume of possible service users we will see.

Donations of food, dry goods in particular, cornflakes, biscuits, orange juice, long life milk, towels, blankets, sleeping bags, men's clothes, coats, shoes, toiletries, old mobile phones, all also urgently needed. Any unused items during the week will be added to RAMFEL's weekly emergency food service and so will all be used to support destitute individuals and families

To register your interest contact Rita Chadha or Lucy Mercer on 0208 478 4513 or email info@ramfel.org.uk, providing your full contact details, including a contact number and how you think you could help.

If we didn't believe this would make a difference we wouldn't be doing this. If you believe that everyone deserves a second chance then please do join us and help make a lasting change for the better.

Please Sir, can I have some more...

2010-09-10T07:04:00.000+01:00

The Government is currently consulting on its Poverty Fund. It is a part of the funding mix offered by the Department of International Development to support the meeting of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals – key amongst which is the “eradication of extreme poverty and hunger”. The aim being that between 1990 and 2015 the total number of people whose income was less than $1 a day would be halved.

The cynics amongst us would probably continue to distrust the political maneuverings around the Poverty Fund, for some development aid has become the modern day equivalent to imperialism.

So what has this to do with little old RAMFEL? Well the whole concept of a Poverty Fund raises interesting questions about not only absolute and relative definitions of poverty, but also definitions and perceptions of others and us, and these are played out at the local level. What is also interesting is that in these austere times, one of the hallmarks and defining features of the new Equality Act, (aspects of which come into force on the 1st October) the socio economic duty is something that the Government is still ‘considering’. Why on earth would it be wrong to consider imposing on public authorities a duty to make sure individuals within their catchment were able to be financially better off, surely to introduce the mechanisms to support a levelling of income amongst diverse communities would be far better sooner rather than later?

Obviously such a duty being new would in itself incur costs. New templates for measuring and qualifying poverty would need to be developed. Then there is the added pressure of, well ok having found out that some parts of your community are economically impoverished, what do you do about it. The traditional response has been lets invest in either skills or training, get people into jobs and they’ll become self sufficient and less of a burden on the state. Bit difficult when there are no jobs around.

There are a couple of local authorities that started nervously exploring socio economic duty and getting ready for it, many more rapidly dropped such work in favour of ‘awaiting further guidance’ That is the cowards way out. The socio economic duty is in one way a great common denominator, everyone needs money; it also transcends and intersects with so many other inequalities, gender, race, sexuality, age, surely by coming to terms with the requirement sooner rather than later they would not only know their communities better but also better target their resources.

There are interesting issues here about immigration as well. Far too many people still believe that asylum seekers get benefits; far too few understand the complex world of professional qualifications and conversion pathways for people from overseas. And all of that is even before you look at the restrictions on working that are placed on people from different parts of the world when living in the UK. It is still the case that migration into this country is an expensive business,
you could be paying an 'agent' to gain you access,
you could be applying for entry clearance from another country where for example the trip to the British embassy could equate to more than the family's annual household income,
you could be here waiting for answer on your application for asylum, living on handouts from charities and the ever meagre support from NASS (National Asylum Support Service), Could you survive on £35.52 per week?
or you could be paying the Home-Office (UK Border Agency) hundreds and thousands of pounds for applications for various forms of leave.
or you could be subject to the those unscrupulous solicitors and legal advisers working to fleece the destitute by charging extorinate amounts of money for services and inappropriate legal work.

More than two years ago the Government justified an increase in Visa costs by saying that the extra money would be used to support local areas to better integrate their new arrivals. Well the Migrant Impact Fund has now gone, but there is no reduction in charges on the visas that funded it. So where has that money going, and at what cost?. We have this week heard of whole teams of social workers and support staff from Childrens Centres being made redundant, in some cases such individuals were working intensely with some extremely vulnerable families. Whose left to pick up the pieces? Civil Society, community and voluntary organisations. Yes but there is only so much we can do.

To also not invest in supporting migration is a false economy and to not support the promotion of the socio economic duty is absolutely the wrong response. So please sir, can we have some more...

For those following on us on Facebook this week and marvelling at the number of times the organisations seems to have been akin to a an Ealing comedy the saga continues on...http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/RAMFEL/135138220254?ref=ts

Schools back...

2010-09-03T09:42:00.000+01:00

It feels like the start of the naughtiest school term ever, as if the nation is about to go into one massive detention for something they haven’t done - and I don’t mean their homework.

Already since the 1st September at RAMFEL we have seen double the number of new clients we usually see on average in a week. There is a new sense of urgency and desperation around people and their immigration situation.

Rumours are rife about what the government is and is not about to do, people are panicked and concerned. The sources of support available to asylum seekers are rapidly evaporating. The wells of good will from family and friends are running dry.
Public sector partners partly because of recruitment freezes no longer have the scope to deal with cases and just ‘dump’ them on agencies like RAMFEL. Eight referrals from Social Services teams from three boroughs in two days. Social Services are also becoming alarmingly honest about their own failures. One social worker contacted us yesterday to ask if a family could get an emergency food parcel even though they were in receipt of public benefits, when I asked why, she said because “they [council] had made a mistake and failed to give the family a grant for school uniform, and as such the family had spent their money on uniforms for the children rather than food”.

The new headteacher, is the Coalition Government who have concocted a confused timetable of lessons based on some serious austerity measures. Complicit with them in this are the hall monitors that are the public sector. Just to appease us all, they have set up various fora, bit like new wave assemblies which in theory would allow us to have a say.

So just like hundreds of children up and down the country, we’ve left our homework to the last minute and been busy spending time playing in the washed out sun. Firstly we marvelled at the ingenuity of the Fawcett Society in challenging the Coalition’s emergency budget for its disproportionate affect on female employees. Something that really the motley crew at the EHRC (Equalities and Human Right Commission) should have been much more on the ball about.

We had the ongoing pick and mix that is the Big Society, where nothing makes much sense and everyone is still eyeing up everyone else nervously for a lead. (Just on that RAMFEL will publish its own manifesto for the Big Society in a few weeks, but just like the Third Way, the Big Society will possibly be cast adrift within a year, so there is not much point investing loads of energy into this).

We have seen the government seek to claim the upper ground by claiming their ending child detention, only to replace this with simply deporting the whole family a lot quicker via some dubious pilots in London. Coincidence or not, we have also become aware of an increase in immigration raids, exploiting to the full the demise of one of the largest charities providing legal advice to asylum seekers, Refugee Migrant Justice.

Locally in East London, we’re seeing local authorities seeking to consult on a range of issues, from strengthening local communities to their own budget. What is interesting about both of these consultations is the organisers interest in seeking to include what they call ‘new and emerging communities, or ‘grassroots groups’.

Whilst that is to be applauded and has been long overlooked, there is a question here around motivation. New and emerging community and voluntary sector groups usually (not always) need a lot of support, they have low levels of start up costs because they are mostly volunteer led. As a result and with the best will in the world and precisely because 'community organising' as defined by the Big Society has to be balanced by also ‘being available for work’ (or your have your benefits cut) the services such groups provide can be inconsistent.

But that is all ok and justifiable because (as in the world of the previous Local Area Agreements) in the new Big Society world, targets can be stretched across sectors and we can all reap the collective benefits for free, at the community and voluntary sector's expense.

The other interesting dynamic in all of this is in the eagerness with which people wish to consult.
Engagement and consultation experts need to change their approach.

How do you consult on the controversial issues, how do you deal with racism and prejudice in consultation on public spending and prioritising need?
Obviously unless we shout very loudly and stamp our feet, the needs of asylum seekers, migrants and refugees and BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) and various other equalities communities will be excluded.

Previously it was because no one was listening, it was over access to the means of consultation, this time more dangerously it is about access plus we are ourselves becoming embroiled in propping up institutional structures that allow the development of a form of prejudice allegedly sanctioned by the ‘voice of the people’. You only have to look at the national example of the Coalition Consultation website to see the consequences. 9,500 responses received and not a single suggestion accepted.

The level of ignorance in relation to public spending on asylum seekers is nothing new, the use of consultations mechanisms that don’t challenge or correct such prejudices is appalling. Which in turn just shows exactly the level of commitment that there is at the moment to equalities issues locally and nationally. If you want to do something different let national and local COMPACTS enshrine how they deal with controversial issues as part of the consultation process with local communities.

Having and articulating racist views is just not acceptable. We’re condemning the view point,
not the person, and yes we can empathise with the personal journey that has led someone to that opinion, but we shouldn’t be forced to defend it in the interests of free speech.

Anyway better go, teachers looking particularly cross, and I don’t think it’s because we forgot to buy her an apple. RAMFEL will hopefully be out of detention by next weeks post, when we’ll be looking at the weird world of the proposed Poverty Fund.

More than just Black History Month

2010-08-27T11:17:00.000+01:00

Can you feel the nerves, the tension, the excitment? Every year as October approaches there is a fanfare of activity around celebrating and commemorating Black History. It is a real shame that such activity usually quickly fades as nothing more than a sweet memory by the 1st November.

Eastside Community Heritage is determined to challenge such an approach and also deploy a sharing of history and heritage as part of brininging diverse aspects of our community together. That is why in June this year we were delighted to be one of the few projects in London to be awarded funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund as part of their Skills for the Future initiative.

This programme will centre on training in oral history to Black and Ethnic Minority communities.
We believe the award of this funding is a significant landmark for the development for oral history practice in the UK, and an acknowledgement of the contribution Eastside has made to oral history since we were established 17 years ago. Most of all, it is a recognition by the HLF – not for the first time -of the vital role the diverse and vibrant communities of East London have played in the history of the capital and its contemporary story.

Eastside’s Skills for the Future proposal was developed in partnership with a number of community and heritage organisations.

Black Cultural Archive – a Brixton based archive history of the African Diaspora and the presence of black people in Britain

Redbridge Museum –one of the country’s youngest museums, which places great emphasis on enabling local people to explore and explain local history.

RAMFEL – (Refugee and Migrant Forum of East London) - promotes community cohesion and support services to Black, Asian, minority ethnic and refugee communities across London.

Autograph – who educate the public in photography, with a particular emphasis on addressing issues of cultural identity and human rights.

London Metropolitan Archives – who hold the largest public record archive in the UK,

Leaside Regeneration - a community based social enterprise developing and delivering a regeneration plan for the Lower Lea Valley

Eastside’s Skill for the Future programme will allow 12 people to be trained in oral history over the next three years. Black and ethnic minority participants will be targeted as these are under-represented in the heritage industry. The trainees will often work on projects which tell the story of such communities. At the end of the training participants will have the opportunity to awarded an NVQ – the first time such a qualification will be available in oral history

Training in oral history skills tends to be presented in a piecemeal way. There are one day courses available but these tend to be courses which are most suitable for those with existing skills and knowledge in the general heritage and history field – not for new entrants. The intention is to provide a comprehensive and structured learning package covering the range of skills needed to be a good oral historian. It will be designed to be suitable for new entrants to the heritage sector.
Among Eastside’s stated aims is one which seeks to empower individuals and groups to access the resources to write, rewrite, record, publish and present their own histories and that of the local area and community.’ – this programme will do exactly that.

For further information contact Judith Garfield on 0208 553 4343 or email office@ech.org.uk
http://www.hidden-histories.org.uk/

Albanian GCSE

2010-08-20T00:37:00.001+01:00

Young people at the Shpresa Programme have for more than two years been campaigning to get the Albanian language recognised as a GCSE or ASSET language.Through their actions they have raised this issues amongst their community and others.

At present, students from Albanian-speaking cultures are unable to study Albanian at GCSE level in schools. We believe that the Albanian language deserves recognition as a GCSE subject in its own right, like other community languages. We believe that community languages are an asset both to the pupils and the education system in the UK.

Studies have shown that:

• Bilingualism in young people is linked to higher levels of achievement in numeracy, literacy and science, as well as in languages. (CILT, 2005, Language Trends 2005)

• In other community languages, pupils achieve consistently high results at GCSE level. (Ofsted, 2008, Every Language Matters)

• Language provision in schools including the teaching of a range of languages has been argued as vital in developing intercultural tolerance, social cohesion and economic competitiveness. (Nuffield Language Inquiry, 2000, languages: the Next Generation)

To be able to achieve their aim thay are looking to gather any support possible any ideas from organsiation or individuals who know how to go about achieving it.

For further information contact Shpresa on Shpresa Programme, Mansfield House, 30 Avenons Road, Plaistow, E13 8HT. Tel: 020 7474 6829 / 020 7511 1586
Email:info@shpresaprogramme.com

The Mind Your Language Test

2010-08-13T12:59:00.000+01:00

From the 1970s hit comedy Mind Your Language

One of my biggest challenges as an asylum and immigration solicitor is trying to help individuals navigate the maze of rules and regulations around the acquisition of English. Whilst we would all agree that the acquistion of English is a must, the approach to implmenting it, in the context of immigration rules is as chaotic and ill thought out as anything one could imagine.

The last government started a process set to be continued with by this government of requiring that those wanted to obtain British Citizenship to jump through so many hoops that many candidates would be forced to think twice before even applying. In my opinion it signalled the death of British Nationality Law, the last nail in the coffin was hammered in April this year when by introducing new Nationality (General) Regulations anyone from this date any applicant who wishes to apply for indefinite leave to remain ( ILR) or naturalisation must obtain the qualification to illustrate their knowledge of language and life in the UK from an accredited college, or a publicly funded, or accredited by one of the recognised bodies.

Now in theory it was not a bad idea, by quality controlling colleges you would in theory at least avoid the abuse and exploitation of vulnerable migrants. The government claimed that they had widely consulted all the relevant bodies such as accreditation bodies OFQUAL ( Office of Qualification and Examination Regulations,) and members of the former Advisory Board for Naturalisation and Integration. However that still meant that they ended up creating a faulty system, there are so many problems with it.

First of all there was no transitional period for the change over between the old and new rules. There was no prior notice to the language schools, academies and the public. The bodies that were responsible for providing certificates weren’t given a specific mandate to so. It also wasn’t made clear how long would it take to obtain the certificate.

Even more ridiculous is the fact that those applicants who had already obtained an ESOL certificate from a college which are not accredited under the new regulation (did not apply for British Citizenship or ILR before 07.04.2010) are obliged by law to obtain the certificate again unless their colleges have already obtained new accreditation. The other alternative is to take the more difficult computerised test ever invented (Life in the UK).

I know these are hard cash strapped times for all, but the system also makes a lot of money for government, and one of the most unfair aspects of this regulation is the financial burden on applicants. The minimum fee for the application for ILR is £850 and for the British Citizenship is £735.00. The cost of an ESOL certificate ranges from between £200.00 to £350.00. Some people have spent months saving before applying only to find their applications were refused under the new regulation. It would take them at least another year to apply.

By pushing more people to undertake the incomprehensible Life in the UK test, the government is also creating a two tier distinction between migrants. Those less well off because of poor education systems in their own country are less likely to be IT proficient or capable, and may also have lower literacy levels. Whilst their spoke English maybe as good as any every day Londoner, their literacy skills will mean they will struggle with the life in the UK test, End result those less capable of getting high paid employment fall by the wayside.

At the same time the Government has conned millions of pounds out of applicants for entry into the country by adding surcharge to visa applications. Money that was then supposed to go to aiding integration in local areas throughout the UK. It’s a disgrace that one of the first casualties of the Big Society has been the cutbacks in funding to Migrant groups and projects focused on integration by the total withdrawal of the Migrant Impact Fund.

Looks like the government’s already made up its mind through the language of a chess game…

Cagney & Lacey do Asylum

2010-08-06T15:36:00.001+01:00

Let us introduce ourselves. I’m Lucy and she’s Danielle. We're the ones you normally speak to when you ring. They call us the Cagney and Lacey of RAMFEL, we googled them and now we know who they are. It’s got something to do with us working as a team and we’re quite confident and upfront young women from Dagenham. I (Lucy) went to Sydney Russell, and Danielle went to Warren Comprehensive.

The only thing we don’t have in common with Cagney and Lacey is that we don’t carry guns, because our boss (Rita) is not allowed near live ammunition, can you imagine!!!!

We were lucky enough to be given an opportunity from the government. Yes, the government!!!!! They gave people on new deal a chance to get a job, working 25hrs a week. We was given a 6 month contract to work within RAMFEL as part of the Future Jobs Fund, where we met some crazy staff that made us feel welcome and part of the team from the first day we started.

Before we came here, we thought like everyone else. We thought asylum seekers come here get better homes, and jobs, certain things got dealt with more efficiently. Within our first week just seeing what people were going through, the conditions people had to live, not having any money and knowing that they are not entitled to anything. Sometimes even children being taken away because the parents don’t have any proper accommodation.

But know we know different, we think the truth wasn’t publicised properly, the fact that some people have to wait for years for a court case, they have to struggle for food and clothing, some asylum seekers don’t even have decent shoes or clothes for their kids. Honestly I don’t think it matters what colour people are, our government still has a duty to help them. We know one client who got really sick, she had cancer and a seven year old son. We was shocked when we heard that she was taken from her hospital bed and driven to a detention centre, it was only because her worker Cheryl and Mohammad rang up to ask something that they were told she was being taken to the detention centre. Cheryl and Mohammad got the people driving the ambulance to stop and take her back to the hospital. She died three weeks later.

If asylum seekers got treated like everyone else, I honestly do think if she had got more help at the beginning she would have got a better chance.

We enjoy working here, and since we started we have been given a number of tasks to do, i.e. signing clients in when they come for there appointments, answering the phone, greeting clients as they enter RAMFEL and many more interesting tasks. I (Lucy) would also like to do casework. Its nice helping people and giving something back.

We’ve never worked for a charity, so we didn’t know what to expect but we’ve felt welcome from the first week. We have learnt loads and really enjoy it.

As I (Lucy) am the original cockney within the staff, I have had many laughs with clients. There is one client in particular that has been learning English, so I took some time to teach him cockney, which I enjoyed. The client also liked the banter and we were all in stitches. Danielle doesn’t understand all the technical terms, so she generally makes up her own.

The real Lucy and Danielle

We have enjoyed every minute working at RAMFEL, and meeting many new people.
We’re happy that we’re staying on past our six months and we’re going to be working to help more people. We are looking forward to our future with RAMFEL.

The 'politics' of representation

2010-07-30T14:34:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time there was a young family headed up by Mr and Mrs Representation. Together they lived on 29 Tokenistic Street. They had two children, a two month old daughter Gatekeeper Representation and a four year old boy Tickbox Exercise Representation.
Mr and Mrs Representation made healthy living form doing surveys, attending focus groups and sitting in citizen’s panels. Recently Mr and Mrs Representation argued publicly at a focus group about what the family thought about the Big Society and she became Miss Representation.

No, not the most enticing discussion and hardly a holiday classic, but the issue of week appears to be the issue of BAMER (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic and Refugee) representation.

Are black (and we’re using this in the broadest term) people the only people that can represent others? Does being Black and being on a committee really mean anything? What’s the best way to address race equality issues? Should Black people just talk about ‘Black issues’, what happens when the issue of ‘Black’ becomes too political? Is the MP Philip Holborne entitled to say he will not support clients who wear a hijab to his MP's surgery? Can you imagine the uproar if a Black MP said they would not see someone who was white?

There is an old adage that applies in such situation and that is ‘you don’t have to put your hand in the fire to know its hot’.

At RAMFEL we are constantly re-evaluating our position, but this weeks events has bought the issue to the fore.

For a start there is the case in
- Redbridge of the alleged Roma community activist that has defrauded a number of public authorities by forging documents to enable benefit claims,
- this week at RAMFEL’s BAME forum meeting in Barking & Dagenham had a lively and lengthy discussion about whether Black groups could and should only receive help from other black groups, and does sitting on a committee connected to the local council really enable change, or whether it was just a case of the old tick box exercise?

-in Havering there was a question about who should be running BAME Forums overall; the council or the community?

- and in Tower Hamlets there is the ongoing saga of one political party having to select a candidate for the directly elected mayor, which has largely centred on who is best to represent a borough with a large Bangladeshi community?

On top of all of these, there are also issues about BAME groups being used to ‘colour’ up funding applications and tenders, only never to be contacted again if the tender has been successful. Are funders really oblivious to this and happy to turn a blind eye to the issue? And then there is the old classic; the larger BAME organisations that are there to help smaller organisations, but spend more time helping themselves.

A lot of this sadly is based on ‘old school politics’. There are in some cases egos at stake, and that’s reflected in the demographic profile of ‘community activists’. Not exclusively, but mostly male and in their late 40-60+. Those in the key position, whether its chairmanship of a major committee or as elected members, are usually from the first generation of immigrants to arrive. They struggled to get their voices heard, but in some cases in the process they have also now drowned out newer voices from the same community. The cake was either so small or non existent when some new communities arrived, that any form of power or recognition was valued, cherished and is still jealously guarded.

But have we not moved on. There are cases for example especially amongst the Eastern European communities, where there is a real need for qualified, well informed and vocal representation. And where this works well, it works very well, organisations like the Roma Support Group and Shpresa are pioneers in their field and should be recognised and financially rewarded as such.

What is urgently needed is a more sophisticated debate that looks at the social, political and economic context of black representation. That has to be done on case by case basis. So 3 top tips for being a BAMER community activist
1. Be holistic, know about a broad range of issues, and know where to and who to draw on for help and be prepared to speak out on a range of issues
2. Use the business argument, no one asking you to be a dragon den warlord, but understanding what will benefit the other side
3. Be prepared to compromise, negotiate, and prioritise your concerns.
No one says you need to be the next Neville Chamberlain and ignore the inequality, but you’re going to have to use existing structures and systems (at least to begin with) to get your voice heard

During August the blog will be turned over to colleagues at RAMFEL. Next week the Cagney and Lacy of RAMFEL, Danielle and Lucy. Born and brought up in Dagenham and employed by RAMFEL as part of the Future Jobs Fund, Danielle and Lucy will describe how their views on asylum seekers and refugees have changed since they started working for the organisation. Every quarter we will also be allowing partner agencies to take over the blogsphere for a week and use the Friday Funny as an opportunity to raise concerns. RAMFEL editorial rules apply! Do get in touch if you feel you would like to add to the debate.

The Place Survey continued: Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind)

2010-07-24T11:54:00.002+01:00

Kinda of sums it up, anyone able to do a similar one for East London?

The end of the Place Survey...

2010-07-22T21:27:00.003+01:00

What on earth is a Place Survey?

No, it is not the same as a Home Improvement Pack, and nor is it a review of the quality of produce at local fish and chip shops.

Initiated in 2008 by central Government, Place Surveys are clever little tools used by local authorities to measure community cohesion, engagement, civic participation and satisfaction with local public services. Questionnaires are used to establish what local residents think.

There is however also so much more behind such surveys. There are a multitude of influencing factors on the possible choice of answers, and an underlying belief that respondent have a consistent and logical understanding of their neighbourhood, that meets the priorities of local public services, for example how important is local democracy as compared to an increase in refuse collections?

At the beginning of the year there was a consultation for councils on what improvements needed to be made for the 2010 survey. The consultation suggested a closer collaboration on cross referencing the Place Survey with other data sets used by national and local government.
But yesterdays announcement by Minister of State for Housing & Local Government, Grant Shapps instructed local councils to suspend the survey for this year. It is indeed an ironic move, that in the same week as we hear a call from government for more neighbourhood action, we no longer have the tools to help, shape or define neighbourhoods.
That presumably will now be done by the Big Society's platoon of community organisers that will morph from caterpillars from the unemployment queues of the Job Centre into beautiful little butterflies, gently fluttering around our local streets.

Our point here is simple, a sense of place for many BAMER (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Refugee) communities is interlinked with race, ethnicity and nationality. Even at the micro street level, your ability to get on, or not get on with your neighbours, will in some part be marked by your previous experience of integration and cohesion, and in turn such experiences are born through (even for BME individuals born in the UK) the international context of migration.

There was always something very desperate about the Place Survey, for a start how does an individual identify and define themselves?. Identities can be born out of so many ideas, your religion, sexuality, politics, occupation, race, ethnicity, gender, age etc and of course in relation to the area in which you reside. But how do you prioritise that space, what do you put first, your country, your city, your borough, ward or street?

One of my biggest annoyances living and working in east London is the number of people in Redbridge for example who regularly say, “I'm going into London”. Redbridge has always had a bit of a schizophrenic identity, (partly induced by the unfortunate nature of the borough’s logo resembling a cannabis leaf,) that it is unsure whether it’s London or Essex.

In neighbouring Barking & Dagenham, meanwhile, there is after the defeat of the far right, still a need to define you as being rooted in the borough. It is an admirable, if not slightly disarming trait which can inadvertently create cliques.

In other boroughs diversity and space are repackaged as an asset, take for example Tower Hamlets where the branding of place (Bangla Town) has become a key to urban regeneration on a large scale.

None however beat the classic understanding of place and migration as adopted by the London borough of Newham’s use of the Migrant Impact Fund. Allegedly, funding that was designed to help migrants integrate in London, and so reduce the pressure on public services has been used by Newham Council to survey recent arrivals from exotic places such as Southwark - because obviously coming from south of the river does require a unique form of integration.

All boroughs have their peculiarities when it comes to their own identify, which is what defines and makes them, and also makes people want to stay and engage. The 2008 Place Survey defined a local area as as follows: “... 15-20 minutes walking distance from the respondent’s home”
Yes of course depends on how fast or slow you walk, uphill or downhill.

Place Surveys start (if you’re excuse the pun) from the wrong place. They have relied on people reacting in a logical way to their neighbourhood, a sense of place whether you are a British born white Anglo Saxon male, or a recently arrived asylum seekers from Afghanistan, or someone who can't be returned to Zimbabwe, is tied up with history, emotion and nostalgia. It is the politics of place that we should be seeking to uncover, and to do that effectively, we need to understand the global influence on notions of place.

The Place Survey questions were in many cases leading, dissatisfaction remained unchallenged. If you were dissatisfied, the problem had to be the place, not possibly your understanding of it; Oh dear does that sounds dangerously like social responsibility, are we already engaging in the Big Society by default?. Not at all, again the Place Survey was based on the idea that you have cause and effect relationship that defines place. It presumes that people had a marmite type of relationship with their locality, they either loved I or hated it. Just look at some of the questions:

- Overall, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your local area as a place to live?

- And how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your home as a place to live?

- How strongly do you feel you belong to your immediate neighbourhood?

-To what extent do you believe X council provides you with value for money?

- Do you agree or disagree that you can influence decisions affecting your local area?

The luxury of being able to ask such questions should not be ignored. Can you imagine having a Place Survey in Mogadishu, in Tehran, in Kabul, or in Belrus?,
Just imagine the questions?

1. Overall, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you, as a minority community with your local area as a place to live, and the army/militia that run it?

[] I’ve been told to be extremely satisfied

[] Can’t complain

[] What is satisfaction?

2. To what extent do you believe X maintains the streets as clean and tidy

[] only when there is an international visit

[] only if there is a local dignify

[] what street?

3. Do you agree or disagree that you can influence decisions affecting your local area?

[] yes I have the ear of the local head honcho (literally in a cabinet in my room)

[] only if I pay enough to be allowed to speak

[] what decisions?

A sense of place is linked to sense of identity; the two are interwoven like actors crossing over from Eastenders and the Bill.

We need to keep something akin to the Place Survey, but broaden it to reflect the real diversity of local communities. We need to involve all, from the early waves of migrants who were invited here and through the streets were paved with gold, to those who arrived as international atrocities forced them out of their home, to more recent waves from Europe who have come here to contribute their skills and talents.

On a serious point, the end of the Place Survey marks a contradiction in terms, if Government wants more neighbourhood work, and more social action on our streets (not of the poll tax type, but that which has Big Lunches and street parties for no other reason than they can) and means we can't even estimate how well community cohesion is happening or not happening locally - but perhaps that is the intention.

Defiantly puts us in our place...

Big Society...Big Misunderstanding

2010-07-20T08:10:00.000+01:00

From the people who said ‘There is no such thing as society, we bring you the ‘Big Society’ ...

There is just so much wrong with the Big Society Plan as announced yesterday, that it should be renamed the Big Misunderstanding.

Here’s a quick summary for those too busy today to engage in the rant in full:

1. The Big Society Plan is based on a paternalistic and simplistic understanding of how the community and voluntary sector operate both strategically and operationally

2. It extenuates class and income divisions, engaging in social and neighbourhood action takes time and money, it implies a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor.

3. It makes no mention of fairness, cohesion, or equality. It brushes these aside in favour of a flawed belief that everyone has the same level of commitment and access to being socially responsible.

Spot the difference:

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, talking to Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987

And

“You can call it liberalism. You can call it empowerment. You can call it freedom. You can call it responsibility. I call it the Big Society. The Big Society is about a huge culture change...

...where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods, in their workplace...

...don't always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face ...

..but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.

.....We've got the biggest budget deficit in the G20, And over the past decade, many of our most pressing social problems got worse, not better. It's time for something different, something bold - something that doesn't just pour money down the throat of wasteful, top-down government schemes

The Big Society is that something different and bold”.

David Cameron speaking in Liverpool (19th July 2010)

Oh no its not, let us not kid ourselves.

The proposals outlined today show precisely how very little Government really knows and understands about charities, community and voluntary groups. The sector has spent so long naval gazing about its own internal capacity, when actually we should have been upskilling and capacity building, our colleagues in the public sector to better understand and engage with us. If nothing else it would have been useful for them as they update their CVs and apply for new jobs.

Is there anything in the Big Society for BAMER (Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic and Refugee) groups? I think not. In fact more danger, a possible increased sense of isolation, fear and suspicion. In focusing on local neighbourhoods as a common focal point, the plan overlooks communities of interest. All the examples today from "Vanguard communities" are about local area based communities clustering around delivering public services. Nothing about the more difficult issues, the more unpalatable truths of society, like challenging discrimination and prejudice.

Read between the lines and we see a return to outputs, the building of the local school, the taking of over of community facilities, and access to information. Conspicuous by its absence is any discussion or mention of ‘outcomes’ – how will people become better engaged with their neighbourhood and what will be the impact, it is a return to tangible outputs. No mention of cohesion, integration or even a glance at equality and fairness.

In today’s speech the Prime Minister goes onto say that If it unleashes community engagement - we should do it., If it crushes it - we shouldn't. Explain that to me in the context of the EDL, BNP, and the "ban the burkha" debate. One persons engagement may inadvertently mean the crushing of someone else’s social action. Define and defend social responsibility, it is a vacumless concept.

The Big Society mantra is ‘social responsibility’, and self help. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking this is solely the result of the recession. This is a fundamental shift and a possible return to asking for a distinction between the worthy and unworthy poor.

Having social responsibility and taking control of your life is not easy when you are an asylum seeker, constantly looking over your shoulder, worrying where your next meal will come from, where you will sleep that night, not to mention sourcing affordable, or cost free reliable legal representation.

By paragraph 3 of the introduction we already have our first major mistake ‘we recognise the big society needs a social repsonse’. Thats so cute, so if we all hold hands in a circle and wish hard enough, everything will be ok?

What it needs is an informed holistic response that involves hard cash and the ability to take calculated risks, not a patronising form of rhetoric.

The Big Society relies on three main planks (no not its authors) but three main ideas:

Public sector reform – payment upon results. That worked just look at how Refugee Migrant Justice (one of the largest charities providing free legal advice to asylum seekers) went into administration last month, because of the Legal Services Commission. Legal Aid based on payment upon results has already been a disaster, a possible further reduction in legal aid, and a downturn in investment income from grant making trusts means that actually come the autumn spending review, legal aid will be limited even further. How do local based charities compete with Capita or A4E for contracts? It has been suggested that BAMER organisations could be well served to adopt the post colonial subservient position of ‘junior partner’ adding a touch of colour to the proceeding. Oh how very quaint!

Local communities come together to discuss local issues – really, how original! I must take that back to the next Neighbourhood watch meeting, and the tenant and residents association meeting, as well as the community forum meeting in my ward.

Who is setting the agenda, whose chairing the meeting, and more importantly who’s writing the minutes? We already know that BAMER groups struggle to get their voices heard at such meetings, that’s if they are allowed in.

Such action will create according to the Big Society plan the ‘little platoons’ of civil society. Makes you feel like your in dads army

Third a cultural change to support the work of neighbourhood groups, what cultural change? The only change that many of us have needed is a change by national and local government to better understand the sector and how it operates and its benefits to them. Make it mandatory for all elected embers to spend a week a year with a third sector organisation (not a social enterprise). Define your neighbourhood, define your community, it may or may not be the one and the same?

And to drive such change we have three key drivers

decentrialisation - We must push power away from central government to local government - and we shouldn't stop there.

transparency - It goes without saying, if we want people to play a bigger part in our society, we need to give them the information.So, for example, by releasing the data about precisely when and where crimes have taken place on the streets...

and finance - The Big Bank

So what are the practical developments

A Big Society Bank – watch the detail of whether this more than just a lender

National centres for community organising – this has to be the most insulting of all the suggestions, what on earth does Government think the million and one voluntary and community organisations in the UK do already.

It cites London Citizen model, have you critically looked at the model. For many being critical about London Citizens is like blasphemy, well lets be honest its a closed inner shop, at the last count £600.00 to join, from our experience, badly administered, ill informed on the issues, and as a membership organisation, following on from conversations with a number of agencies up and down the country a top down agenda. It is very difficult to get your bit of social action on the agenda.
Yesterdays news that Hope not Hate have also aligned themselves with London Citizens is a sad reflection of the desperate times we live in and the very strange marriages that are about to appear.

The Big Society Plan is a return to class based politics, the benevolent donors and philanthropists of the 18th and 19th century working with the ‘wretched’ of the earth. Could someone on Job Seekers Allowance really afford to be a community organiser, fundraise for their own job, full time?

Providing neighbourhood grants in the poorest areas – wow that is original, I think that was called the community empowerment network

Civil servants volunteering, now my sister is a civil servant, and I can say this in no fear because I know she doesn’t read his blog. Does government actually understand that managing volunteers does actually cost money?. It has costs, recruiting, retaining and supporting volunteers is a specialist art. Without resorting to crude generalisations, I want someone who can roll up their sleeves and really work beyond the photo opportunity. Again, it is a return to a class based voluntary sector.

Big Society Day – great something else to organise, alongside Make a Difference Week, Volunteer Day, have a nervous breakdown organising events day. Think again, a critical mass of activity on one day, can does in ‘distort the market’ – enthusiasm and energy for just one day, and then nothing for the remaining 364 days of the year.

It is also ironic that as the public sector begins to defend itself by talking about evidence based policy, being able to demonstrate the impact and value of individual departments, the Big Society Plan cites no more than a handful of references to support its approach.

At best such references are flimsy and selective just like the Big Society Plan itself.

The "Dark European" that walks like an "Arabian Egyptian"

2010-07-16T07:43:00.004+01:00

Sometimes a situation arises that completely throws you into questioning everything around you.

It appears that in Police speak (like you hear on the Bill) there is an IC code (Identity code, also known as Ethnicity or Phoenix code) that defines individuals as ‘Dark European’. Such a discovery certainly came as a complete shock to at least half of the people at a meeting this week. My instant reaction was that has got to be wrong, but it was an issue that cleverly distracted me all day (and much of the night).

Googling the reference, researching the background of IC and even talking with two (one recently) retired policemen drew little comfort.

Gut instinct tells you calling anyone ‘dark’ are derogatory, humiliating and wrong, can we really believe that the Met uses such terms in 2010?. Yet if I was a victim of a crime how would I want them to describe the perpetrator.? There is obviously a need for such categorisation, if it informs and defines the world. However under such circumstances could the police, just via a physical observation really know the difference between someone from Kashmir and someone from Southern Italy.

But before this blog degenerates into a weekly lesson on the roots of our language, we’re not objecting to classifying people for such purposes, (unless someone can provide an effective alternative) but it’s the connotations that the choice of language has. And let’s be honest in most cases language does offer us choices. There is also a confusion that resonates loudly and clearly amongst many public service providers, and that is a confusion between nationality, ethnicity, and race. They are not the one and the same.

Surprisingly there is very little on the website about this that is said with any credible authority, various versions with subtle differences are around. It interesting that up until 2005, the codes were as follows:

IC1 White Caucasian
IC2 Dark European (Mediterranean)
IC3 Negroid
IC4 Indian/Pakistani
IC5 Chinese/Japanese
IC6 Arabian/Egyptian
And IC 7 was an Alien
In 2005 it changed to,
IC1 White European
IC2 Dark European (Latino)
IC3 African-Caribbean
IC4 Asian (South Asian)
IC5 Oriental (East Asian)
IC6 Arab
As both Dr Who's Tardis was full and ET had gone home, IC7 became 0- or Unknown

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

Geography may not be my strong point, and I can get lost going home, but since when has Dark European been a part of Latin America. And if we are looking at Arabian there are at least 33 different countries which host Arabic speakers, from Algeria to the Sudan.

It is a curious world we live in, but presumably victim and assailant are not needed by Interpol, otherwise just think of all the Inspector Clusos walking around clueless, in the wrong country and even continent.

On a serious note, RAMFEL will be digging around a little further on this issue, and I freely admit that this has not as yet had the benefit of anything more that a quickly googled look at some references, but the fact that there is so little in the public domain from the Police about this is also telling.

Yes, it is an internal code, and form of shorthand, but in an era of diversity awareness, and Freedom of Information, we have to understand that using the term ‘Dark European’, there are consequences for work with certain newly arrived migrant communities in East London, especially when some communities already have low confidence in the Police, and obviously the question will need to be asked how does this feature in the Met’s Equality Impact Assessment.

We’ll keep you informed...

To Complain or Not to Complain...

2010-07-10T09:28:00.018+01:00

There is an interesting debate going on in the third sector at the moment, about whether people should or should not be complaining about issues related to their funding. Fear of rocking the boat in tempestuous waters, has one side arguing against speaking out, whilst others say until somebody says otherwise its business as usual.

Camden Council's website (http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/stream/asset/?asset_id=36987) carries an unusual article about the art of complaining, really bizarre for a local authority to take such an approach, but nonetheless entertaining. There is a suggestion that the British stiff upper lip, does not complain, it simply gets on with it.
Not from where I’m sitting, it quivers, quakes and erupts into unrelated rage.
It is an interesting dilemma for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BME) organisations. When a BME organisation complains it is being stroppy, disobedient, (needs to be smacked down in the true colonial tradition), when an umbrella ‘white’ organisation complains, it sits sometimes more comfortably, it is raising a point, it is being critical friend.

We have a friend who can simply not relate to the world outside, without making Freedom of Information requests. His whole world is made up of digging behind the rhetoric and finding out how and why some public sector agencies distorted the truth or allowed us to be misled.

This week we have seen further cuts to the third sector. Croydon Councils is cutting it's voluntary sector budget and the groups it funds from 47 to 6. The Migrant Impact Fund is no more, and there are ever more challenges with the bureaucrats of the Legal Services Commission.

What never ceases to surprise me is how readily organisations will fight and defend their corner when their own funding is at risk, but very few speak out when its somebody else’s funding or a point of principle at stake. Now RAMFEL made a complaint to a certain local authority about their management and running of their children’s centres over 18 months ago, our complaint was in part accepted, but we were dismissed like annoying little children, that should be seen and not heard. But local authorities do move in mysterious ways, 18 months later, and RESULT!. Recent events would suggest that there was cause for concern and that we were not wrong to raise such concerns.

There are others who complain about the wrong issues. I was in a meeting this week where one individual spent two hours complaining about the so called lack of professionalism amongst BME groups and missed the point about why such inequalities existed. Another person at the same meeting complained about all BME organisations being too small and unable to grasp the wider world. Neither indviduals were obvious BNP or EDL sympathisers but individuals charged with helping tthe BME third sector. Both failed to understand the reality of the BME third sector and the BME workforce within it.

So, some top tips for complaining for BME organisations:

1. Keep your complaint short and sharp, don’t recap over a century of history, stay focused on the issue (it really does not matter that an officer in 1983 once blanked you in the corridor, that officers gone, and so possibly has all record of them ever existing)

2. Take ownership of the complaint (if you have heard something second hand, establish the facts first, triangulate your sources, make sure you haven’t got the wrong end of the stick)

3. Understand yourself and the organisation. Know what you want from making the complaint, an apology, a change of service, an overhaul of the department, change of government – be clear what your end goal is. Know what the organisation you are complaing to is like, understand their written and unwritten systems and procedures for addressing complaints and concerns, also understand their drivers (no not the one who drives the mayor around) - but what is it that will motivate them to effectively address your complaint)

4. Don’t name drop – it impresses no one, except your mother

5. Don’t allow them to say you have a ‘chip on your shoulder’ – don’t let it become personal, it’s not about you it‘s about the greater good. (You could have a whole potato crop of issues with them but pick the right time to harvest)

For those of you interested in etymology (study of origin of words and phrases)
Wrong end of the stick
Origin: This phrase refers to a walking stick held upside down, which does not help a walker much. Originating in the 1400s as 'worse end of the staff', this term was changed to the current wording only in the late 1800s.
Alternative: The Romans invented the flush toilet, but not toilet paper; and their lavatories were communal affairs. Personal cleanliness was addressed with a cloth or a sponge which lay in a bowl of water at one end of the lavatorium, and which was passed from person to person by means of a stick. So someone deep in conversation may not be looking when the stick was passed to them, and therefore getting hold of the wrong end of it.
Chip on your shoulder
The phrase originated in the United States and is from the 19th century. People who were looking for a physical fight would walk around with a chip of wood on their shoulders, daring anyone nearby to try and knock it off. To accept the proposed challenge, someone would have to knock the chip of wood off his shoulders

Would You Adam and Eve it?

2010-07-03T22:01:00.000+01:00

Photo: Harry Dunton

Apparently, the old cockney rhyming slang is on its way out, and is to be replaced by Jafaican, a brand of multicultural London English, found as one would expect in inner London.

Hailing as a combination of dialects from Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, West Africa and the Indian subcontinent, iIt is according to the researchers of Queens Mary College to be spoken by inner London working class people.

What is interesting is the timing of this story. It has featured in much of London’s mainstream news, this week, but the original story was broken in the Independent in April 2006, and received a typical response from much of the press. The Mail for example described Jafaican as ‘infiltrating English’. So what has pushed it to the fore now?

Whilst I do adore conspiracy theories, I don’t believe this is deliberate, but it does have consequences for the overall discussion of immigration, race and ethnicity. As Britain pulls up its drawbridges and the common enemies that were the highly skilled migrants from developing nations and asylum seekers are refused access, we need to develop a new enemy, and what better divider than language.

You do not have to be a socio linguist to realize the consequences. Languages evolve over time, it’s the way of the world, to present dialects however as language is misleading. Dialects belong to people, and unless you live in 'splendid isolation' it is hard to imagine how you could not come to be influenced and take on even if unwittingly other dialects.

It is also ironic that this has also come in the same week as the MP, Philip Hollobone has launched a private members bill to make it illegal for people to cover their face in public. (Pity the bank robbers!). Quite clearly targeted at the Muslim community and in particular wearers of the burka.

The current debate is about conforming to a perceived style and expectation, the question is whose?

We have an amazing array of languages, dialects and accents in RAMFEL, both amongst the client group and staff team. It’s not uncommon, for example, for staff to translate for a Punjabi speaking client, in cockney to an Iranian Farsi speaking solicitor who is working alongside a Patois speaker with a strong Brummie accent. Yes it does make for some comical moments and things do inevitably get lost in translation, but more that that it is essential part of human engagement.

Awright geeezzaa! Nowt ter be scared ov . Sorted mate.

Its hotting up for BME funding...

2010-06-29T08:07:00.010+01:00

On the news this morning the statements made as part of an exchange by two BME (Black Minority Ethnic) councillors in Britsol. Cllr Shirley Brown response to Cllr Jay Jethwa's amendment to the proposal to cut funding for BME groups resulted in a bitter exchange of insults between all the main parties.

Jay Jethwa's original proposal and Shirley Brown's response

Apart from the obvious use of words, what is also disgraceful here is the lack of a substantive argument on the issue. Emotive words, personal attacks are the equivalent to "political hate crime".

Where's the business argument for why BME communities need some extra support?,
Where's the explanation of structural inequalities?,
Where's the argument for a level playing field?

We have allowed the debate for BME communities to become hi jacked by 'community cohesion' we need to get the debate back to a place which talks about the structural inequalities, and recognises that there is still a need for 'levelling the playing field'.

It provokes serious soul searching questions for the BME third sector. How well do we really know the communities in which we live and reside, not just the BME part, but all of it, how well can we compare and contrast the haves and the have nots.

Over the past few months we have seen an increase in concern amongst the number of BME organisations concerned that because they don't have the numerical presence, that they are at risk of being cut.

Such concerns are also being played upon by funders, and that's because the commissioning process and outcome model of funding does little to support creativity and independence in the third sector as a whole. The outcome model presumes that if enough of X happens that Y will automatically occur, and whilst in theory such an approach should level the playing field, it presumes that their is a linear line between cause and effect.

Without getting too 'Albert Einsein' about this, life is just not like that.

I have lost count of the number of partner agencies I have to remind that they will need a longer lead in time to work with BME communities, that success has to be measured in smaller variables. The Commission for Integration and Community Cohesion made some valid and important points, but in arguing against the funding of 'single identity group' it presumed the world was fair and equal access and equal life chances existed for all.

The success of BME communities can not always be measured in the number of people they bring to a meeting or an event, the number of people they can get into work, it has to also be about how far they have bought those individuals on a journey that they themselves have chosen to define and take. Such an argument requires BME communities to better understand 'self determination'.

There's a lot of work to be done, and as the recession bites BME groups have got to become more sophisticated in the arguments we make to support fairness and social justice.

I KID you not...

2010-06-24T16:58:00.005+01:00

Kenny Hunter is the winner of the inaugural Spitalfields Sculpture Prize, his work - I Goat - will be sited in Bishops Square, Spitalfields from October 2010.

"I Goat shows a hand-sculpted goat standing atop a stack of packing crates. Hunter was inspired by Spitalfields’ rich, ongoing, social history. The goat stands as a symbol for the various waves of migration that have found sanctuary in Spitalfields and helped to shape it. The goat, as an image of persecution and sacrifice, reflects how each successive group of immigrants have faced their own combination of conflict, oppression and poverty, all eventually finding a new home in London. The crates on which it stands reference the market as well as the ongoing history of transience and human flux."

It is in my opinion a beautiful piece, eye catching, and exciting. I struggle, however to agree with its interpretation. According to the artist its a metaphor for migration.

As regular readers of this blog will have come to realise we are not averse to the appreciation of good art, and indeed this is a striking piece. It is also however reflective also of a resurgence in enthusiasm in engaging with the migration journey, (timely at a time when both physically and emotionally many are feeling confined by the constraints of the recession, for which migration is blamed in part). However the desperation to link art with emotional testimony, and then pass it off as analysis is scary. Yes 'I Goat' is entertaining, and yes its quite interesting, but its also devoid of historical and political context, and so distorts the reality of the migrants experience.

Just by way of further irrelevant information, the word "scapegoat" is a mistranslation of the word Azazel (In Hebrew: עזאזל). The Septuagint, an early Greek translation of the Old Testament, had incorrectly translated Azazel as ez ozel – literally, "the goat that departs" – and translated the word as tragos apopompaios, meaning "goat sent out", hence the term scape goat.

It is important that we do not loose sight of the reality of the lives of those affected by destitution and hardship through migration, and that we understand it as the interplay of power and politics. We can't allow migration to become an exotic fascination with the other.

What's next for Refugee Week 2011?

2010-06-21T08:50:00.002+01:00

So that’s Refugee Week for 2010 done.

I doubt very much if many organisations will be able to invest in any form of celebration in 2011.

There is sadly something fundamentally flawed with the refugee week model, it sits uneasy with the context of local organisations trying to win favour with, and influence national and local decision makers. It belies the insecurity of the immigration system; it presents emotional testimony as a form of voyeuristic fascination with the other. The reason why so many events focus on dancing, singing, food, arts and culture, - is because it’s safe.

Is that what we really want? Is that what defines refugees, a timely discussion in a week where Gary Younge questions in his new book “Who Are We - And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?” In an original and enthusiastic definition of identity, Younge questions the need for categorisation by occupation, income, race, gender, identity; he calls for a basic humanity. Some may consider it naive proposal especially during a recession; others would herald it as an opportunity to reconfigure the debate. As Paul Gilroy write in ‘There ain’t any black in the Union Jack’ the question is not whether I am Black or British, but why do you feel it necessary to ask.

Yes I know there is a need for celebration during Refugee Week, but surely that comes after equality has been introduced into the system. In being too quick to celebrate the diversity model of refugees we have neglected to inform the general public about the basic inequality of the system that leaves people in poverty and destitution.

That is not to say that RAMFEL did not play its part. Three events in five days, but we preached largely to the converted, (so now we have a somewhat clearer idea of what the a refugee network in Barking & Dagenham needs to do to support those working with asylum seekers and refugees, a good turnout to a Tea party in Redbridge, said more about the need for more refugee groups to become holistic strategic partners, and in Newham a Refugee Forum Fair that enabled new and interesting contacts).

For Refugee Week to be really effective you've got to be able to win over, or at least cast doubt in the minds of the BNP and EDL supporters, you’ve got to make them stop and question their assumption and the crude sterotypes that their lives are based on. EDL marching through Barking & Dagenham on Tuesday was a disgrace, pitching up in Whitechapel in Tower Hamlets late that same day for drunken bawl was the epitome of a day of disgrace. These are the misinformed individuals that we need to talk to, not in condemnation or a preaching missionary manner, but in a manner that makes clear the reality of being a refugee in London today, and also understand the origin and rationale behind their mistrust.

Refugee Week - Warm words spoken and quickly forgotten

2010-06-15T08:00:00.000+01:00

Why do we still need a Refugee Week? Why do we still need a black history month, an International Women's Day?

It is a challenge every year for all organisations like ours. A week out devoted to making a presence, and having warm words spoken and quickly forgotten. There is a pressure as well, create something that is big and beautiful, that has a lasting effect and will be remembered.

And yes indeed there is a need for a time of focused attention on the issue, but we also need, in marketing speak, to refresh he brand. All singing and dancing, happy troops largely only 'preach' to the converted, we need to be able to take risks, plant the seeds of change that win hearts and minds. And so it is that we need to look during Refugee Week at the one to one interactions, we need to explain the history and legacy that leads to being a refugee, and fire the imagination that enables creative thinking and risk taking.

Yes we're doing the usual, a song and dance today and a tea party on Friday, and a fair on Saturday, but when that's all finished what then?

Bigging up Immigration

2010-06-09T07:38:00.000+01:00

In the Big Conversation, we can now talk about the Big Society creating a Big Disaster, and that disaster is the onward march of ruthless, unfair and unjust immigration policy. So Monday was deport children day, must have missed Tuesdays brainwave, and now Wednesday its stop spouses coming in. Only however if they are from a non EU (replace with non white) countries, so let’s forget the causes of immigration and migration, and just focus on the physical manifestation

Let us also develop a collective amnesia that ignores the history of colonialism and imperialism, the diminishing resources of the developing nations stolen by the so called developed world, the incitement to armed conflict, fuelled for and paid for by the west, the possible economic and environmental implications of climate change resulting from the greed of western nations. Instead let us focus more on the victim as the offender!

Post Election Community and Equality Blues

2010-06-03T18:20:00.000+01:00

So, where have we been, I hear you all asking? The last posting was April, and we've been deadly silent. Post election blues, or nothing to say? - actually neither. We've been pondering on what a 'purple' government means for community cohesion, equalities, asylum, immigration and local government.

Let us first look at the election, yes fantastic the BNP has been wiped out, but hot on their heels are the EDL ( English Defence League). The St George's flags may have temporarily come down from the streets of Dagenham, but they will be up again, and quite rightly so for the world cup. Post July, will they stay, will we see the streets of London paved with EDL members? Let us not kid ourselves that community tension and the stresses and strains that enabled the BNP to seem a viable alternative have gone away. In a recession, there's little chance of a massive house building programme, even if it creates new jobs. Already this week, we've heard of four community and voluntary sector organisations, either closing or being forced to merge to survive.

Don Flyn from the Migrant Rights Network asked quite rightly “If Immigration was the dog that didn't bark during the election?” Yes it was, the stupidity and absurdity of some of the arguments were embarrassing to hear, misrepresentation layered upon misunderstanding is a simple recipe for miscommunication. And so it was that Rochdale women was both wrong and right at the same time. Right to bring up the issue of immigration, wrong to not be able to couch it in terms that the politicians could respond to without getting themselves into a pickle. We have extracted any compassion from the discussion of asylum and immigration, we have muddled the two, and in so doing confused and obstructed people understanding how the real system works. In the eagerness to be reasonable politicians have said we understand and empathise with those aggrieved by immigration. We have lost our compassion, our moral compass and most importantly our independence. It is still wring to resent and hate someone because they are different to you, no two ways around it. Unless I have missed it there is also no mention of community cohesion. The first casualty one suspects of the cuts.

Let's take a moment then to look at what in terms of equalities, community cohesion asylum, immigration and local government we can expect over the next annus horribus.

There are no radical plans to relax the hideous 'cat and mouse' regime of asylum and immigration. Even the supposed enlightened end to child detention raises a number of issues. Every Child Matters most definitely, but if the child and/or family is subject asylum or immigration challenges then it’s not so important! We have lost count of the number of social workers aggrieved and frustrated by the system, who regularly complain and off load to us.

Who's going to look after these so called 'liberated' children? Social Services, not likely. One only has to look at the chaos that is so many social service departments already find themselves in, and that’s before the cuts.

There is nothing radical in the discussion of equalities:
Most of the proposals were already alluded to in the new Equality Act passed in the wash up. Yes there is a public commitment to supporting both through the asylum system in this country and via international diplomacy an advancement of gay rights. The devil as always is in the detail. A relatively easy concession to make, ignore completely the fact that we still have over 400,000 people waiting for a decision on their case. That we’re moving to a process of earned citizenship and immigration, where asylum is an uncomfortable and inconvenient truth. Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, be interesting to see if we can use that to lobby for a re-representation of asylum as a legitimate, lawful claim, that has a historical, social and moral legacy for the UK.

No amnesty, our own Mayor of London has also gone conveniently mute on the issue.
The annual cap is in, and so asylum is out.

It’s claimed that the new government will explore new ways to improve the current asylum system to speed up the processing of applications. Now where have we heard that before? Yes perhaps for some of our clients a come down from 11 and 13 years, would be nice. It is a long time to live in limbo and largely on charity.

Last but not least let’s also not forget local government. Interesting that local government was to be given a new power 'general competence' I won't even ask what it was thought they were doing before). By far the biggest amour in our toolbox for addressing the very real social injustices faced by those with an asylum or immigration issue is the new social economic duty. We need to wake up to the fact that a duty to safeguard people from falling into poverty could be a valuable advocacy tool for those of us committed to equality. No one is singly disadvantaged, those facing one form of discrimination may often also be from the lowest income groups.

And here's where the story comes full circle, to meet all thses new challenges, there is a call for social action (commonly known to most of us as the community and voluntary sector, and if you really must the Third sector). The community and voluntary groups that survive will be those who are prepared to stand up and be counted. The groups that can show creativity, are prepared to take risks and prepared to speak out?. How does that equate with money, well it doesn’t really and it may be idealistic to presume that any of this can be done without funding. But just as equalities, asylum and immigration have all become
couched in the language of rights and responsibilities, so has the community and voluntary sector, we’ve become too cosy with funders, we’ve lost our radical edge, we’ve colluded and allowed ourselves to be used to meet other agendas.

If we’re to beat the post election community and equality blues we’ve got to march to our own tune, now more than ever. As voluntary agencies working on equalities we’ve got to build enthusiasm and independence, passion and commitment for a fairer, safer and more just world, and that starts in our backyard.

Woz Up With Community Cohesion?

2010-04-10T05:51:00.001+01:00

Had a really interesting chat yesterday with a chap from Rochdale about community cohesion. Nice to get away from the usual trite about strategies and statistics, and a return to basics.

Let’s be honest, we as human beings are tribal, we’re drawn intuitively to comfort zones of people we have something in common with, and without us all carrying detailed and full CVs tattooed on our torsos, the initial signifier is ‘race’, gender, age etc. It takes guts, and a great deal of personal zeal to move out of your comfort zone, to an encounter with the ‘other’. Yet this is what strategists and ‘the state’ would have us believe we should be doing and encouraging others to do.

Now there is the obvious question of how many of those that manufacture for the state actually do that in their day o day personal lives. And here we have the core of the problem, for years I have had blazing rows about whether class politics still exists and in a very postmodernist sense I’ve argued no. Well maybe I was wrong, because the great leveller is actually socio economic status, i.e. the money in your pocket, or for many more people the lack of it. Its money that buys opportunities, enables the confidence that enables the rhythm of public spaces to actually exist.

There is a whole industry around community cohesion, that says I feel your pain, I understand you, and I’ll help. Help who, it’s the presumption of guilt whilst still innocent. Community cohesion has become institutionalised and that is why we have so many problems, and that is why it’s not working in the way it needs to.
So where to next? How do we make people feel comfortable out of their comfort zone, it’s the equivalent to the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, remember those growing pains, working a who, what where you are, your place in the world, and it’s the same for communities, A sense of zeal and identity that comes from a shared identity Why are local boroughs therefore so bad at branding themselves, East End vs. Posh place, most of London has been defined over recent years by large scale regeneration schemes designed to improve economic well being, that supported by localism has measured communities by the development of mixed communities, what it hasn’t done is brand the communities. Gateway projects and large scale physical reconstruction projects have branded buildings not people. Don’t get me wrong I’m not talking about pearly kings and queens and the trite commercialisation of ethnic shopping areas, we’re talking about a feature line branding of boroughs devoid of the physical space and concentrating on the character and commitment of a diverse community.

Well it’s a thought!

Best in Class... best my ????

2010-03-30T02:10:00.000+01:00

So it comes to pass, its official. There is no compassion or humanity for asylum seekers and refugees.

Over the last week we have been unfortunate to hear of two shocking stories that were the incidences to happen to individuals who were with status and ‘non ethnic’ not only would more have been done, but there would be a national outcry.
The first involves our old favourite schools and education. We need to be careful how much we say as the matter is currently the subject of an investigation, but no amount of best practice or Equality Impact Assessments is going to fix this one. It’s an issue of trust, but just as importantly it’s an issue of political clout. A complaint made by an ethnic minority, not large in numerical presence, relatively recently settled, is clearly not subject to the same scrutiny as more well established and non ethnic communities, so why then the pretence?

What is emerging now is more than a tick box exercise; it’s a fundamental confusion between equal opportunities and diversity/community cohesion. We need an urgent return to basics, equality work that measures, improves outcomes, and supports improved life chances, not work that is pulled out to hallmark ethnicity, celebrate difference and warn as badge of pride, ‘I have diversified’. There is a place for diversity, but it comes after you’ve done everything to make sure equality is in place. That’s why I am so cruel to artists and cultural based groups that come to RAMFEL, don’t get me wrong there is a place for art in society but it’s part of a hierarchy of needs, food, shelter and health.

Which brings me to my next point; again a local NHS provider who is as incompetent as it is stupid. A client of RAMFEL’s for whom we are currently making an application to regularise their stay has stage 4 cancer. Rather than giving her treatment, what does the hospital do, at 4pm it (despite knowing we’re working on the case) moves her by ambulance to Lunar House (known to many as the Home-Office) to present herself. Such a course of action throws not only her pending application into confusion and suggests she is less than credible, but also heightens the risk of her being detained and deported. It was just by chance that one of our staff rang to check something for the application, and they found out what was happening.

Ambulance was swiftly turned around and a personal and family tragedy was avoided, imagine being the six year old son, coming back from school to find your mum has simply vanished!
Yet both of these incidences have happened in the same local authority area, an area which prides itself still on being ‘multicultural’ and the best in class –which shows you exactly how behind the times they are!

Next month RAMFEL launches the ‘ RAMFEL Commitment, Caring and Compassion awards for the Public Sector”. Awards that acknowledge councils, NHS Trusts and other public sector agencies who have done their utmost to enable equality of opportunity. Departments that have worked within the law, and met their LAA targets, but remain dedicated to support asylum seekers, migrants and refugees. Alongside awards for ‘best practice’, we’ll also not opposed to naming and shaming!

So they fund horses, do they?

2010-03-24T08:05:00.000Z

Have you heard the one about the local authority who rather fund discretionary rate relief on stables, rather than on work with the Eastern European community? If it wasn’t so sad it would be laughable.

Despite their own research into the needs of A2 and A8 migrants from Eastern Europe, where they recognised the need for more targeted support locally for the communit(ies), despite their own community cohesion strategy demanding work with newly arrived migrant communities from Eastern Europe to aid integration and community cohesion, they have refused to fund specific work with two Eastern European communities.

One can accept that in the current economic climate, tough choices need to be made, what one can’t accept is the contradiction between fact and fiction as represented in the councils own policies and strategies. The only thing cohesive about this borough's cohesion strategy is the binding, holding it together!

An application for discretionary rate relief was granted to a riding stable, which had the audacity to say they once had one ethnic client. I would not begrudge any colleague in the community and voluntary sector funding and well done to them for being able to push the right buttons.

Equalities and community cohesion work by its very nature is messy, inconsistent, requires long lead in times, and is extremely painful and disturbing for all concerned. It’s not all about samosas and reggae, it’s about making challenges and standing up for what is right and challenging that which is wrong, like the far right. It’s about speaking out for the greater good.

We’re members of various BAMER partnerships and networks across London, and what always makes me laugh is that when I put out an appeal for help and assistance, hardly ever a response, when I put an appeal out highlighting a funding opportunity, well let’s just say my inbox overflowth.

We need intelligent commissioning; we also need intelligent BAMER groups prepared to engage in the broader and wider context of the world we live in. This isn’t about talking down the sector as some of the representative bodies have started to do of late (to service their own interests) this is about seeing the reality of the BAMER sector in an increasingly hostile political and competitive environment.

I have remarked on numerous occasions about the colonialism we as BAMER organisations allow non BAMER organisation to impose upon us. Yet we are our own worst enemy, no one is asking for hunger strikes, or marches to the Cabinet Office, what we need is clear consistent and confident leadership, that is devoid of funding and egos. Unrealistic some may argue; very much needed we would suggest.

We have probably incurred the wrath of officers and councillors alike for daring to voice an opinion, via a five page letter and 90 second representation. But it had to be said, we will no doubt also incur the further wrath of colleagues from the BAMER sector for making such bold statements, and not toeing the party line. But I’ll end on this which we have now given pride of place to in all our offices and highlights once again for those of us who had forgotten the eloquence of Martin Niemoller

THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
That is why RAMFEL speaks out for all!

...and a Happy, and Fair New Year to You

2010-01-01T08:19:00.000Z

For much of 2009, people of all political persuasions and none, have been calling for an 'honest debate' about immigration - what they really meant was an honest discussion about 'race', nationality, and ethnicity.

The suggestion that we were in some are collectively way being dishonest, as if immigration was a dirty little colonial secret, that is the cause of all evil, was and is simply wrong. We know the New Asylum Model is not working, we know the Points Based System is perpetuating class and racial divides, we know that Legacy cases are a fallacy.

Meanwhile the concept of 'integration' has been banded about as a cure for all ailments. We have been brainwashed into thinking uncritically about the concept. Now, don't get me wrong, we're not saying that learning English for example is not important, it is increasingly essential - but what use is it, when you speak even with a strong cockney accent and well versed in East End slang, if the person your conversing with, only sees you as an 'ethnic other'. In 2009 we have seen an East End borough use the word 'Paki', meekly apologise, confine it to the mysterious realms of miscommunication, and a lack of training, and simply move on. At the same time we have seen a fanfare of trumpets herald the new Equality Bill, we have seen a watering down of the structural checks and balances that are available, we've seen a clawing back of legal aid that makes challenging discrimination and inequality more difficult, we've seen a further move towards lip service and tick boxing.

Sadly that is where we are, we're no longer a melting point, we've been allowed to simmer over, by the very people we trusted. It is time to reclaim the debate.

This blog will be a no holds bared look at the issues that matter to us as a relative small voluntary organisation in East London. We don't have the clout, the links, the prestige or power of some of our larger counterparts, but what we do have is a vision and the confidence to articulate what we think. We're talking about safeguarding, expanding equality, we're talking challenging the Third Sector to be more responsive to change, and not to naval gaze and bemoan the lack of funding, we're talking about really making a difference.

And the key difference we all need to make, friends and foes, is to challenge the very real threat of the far right in Barking & Dagenham. So our question to you on this first day of the new year, what will you do to promote equality in 2010?