From art classes to getting a hair trim, the award-winning charity Action Foundation offers a helping hand to 1,700 asylum seekers and refugees in Newcastle.
Every Thursday, the charity's building near the Quayside is open from 11am-2pm for interactive sessions and refugees and asylum seekers are able to build friendships in order to combat isolation. People can come in to ask questions, there is a barber who cuts hair for free, a volunteer-led cafeteria, and free clothes that have been donated.
Many of the facilities provided are to help refugees, asylum seekers and migrants integrate into the community. Even the way the room is structured helps to create a sociable environment, with people gathering to play table tennis, snooker, and painting or drawing art.
READ MORE: Up to £1m available in support of Newcastle University students and colleagues seeking sanctuary
Kasra Mirzaei, 26, an asylum seeker from Iran who came to the UK in July 2021, has been involved with arts and crafts at Northern Print and has been able to express his love for music at CuriousMonkey. He said: “I love music, I like to play the kamancheh… Places like CuriousMonkey do music and theatre sessions, and it's really good, when people attend these they love it.
“I help with interpretation here at Action Foundation, and I help with giving information to other people who come here. I see that families have a lot of problems, especially with housing."
The 26-year-old, can't work yet until he receives a refugee status due to the restrictions on working rights for asylum seekers. He said: “I can’t work at the moment, in Iran, I was an engineer. It has been hard having to start from zero, I get told I’m so high in energy, and happy and it's because I don’t have time to think of these problems, especially for my health."
Amir Abdoli, from Iran, arrived in the UK in 2018 and received his refugee status a year after that. In May 2019, he started coming into Action Foundation.
The 29-year-old is aiming to go to university and focus on his new business in graphic design, he said: “I was a bit depressed during the time I had just moved here, I had nothing to do. I had the time and English skills to help people, so a started taking on a volunteer role and helped with interpreting.
“I got out of the loneliness, depression, and anxiety I had, during a time I was waiting to get a refugee status. It took me longer than everyone else, it took me 11 months, coming to Action Foundation helped me out a lot.
“After getting the status, I made many good friends around here (Action Foundation), and kept on volunteering, alongside that I started my own business, which is graphic designing. I work part-time at the Castle Gate church.
“I’ve always wanted to be involved in art projects and be in different places and meet different artists. I was into art since I was a kid.”
For Refugee Week this week, Action Foundation has been working with Northern Print- artistic printmakers based in Ouseburn - to create work for the exhibition in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. The two organisations have been working together since January.
Northern Print has been involving refugees and asylum seekers in producing a large woodcut, that measures 150cm by 150cm and which is displayed at the Baltic exhibition.
Amir added: “No system can be 100% perfect, right now I believe the housing issue is the most obvious thing. People like me come to places like Action Foundation and make friends, who can speak the same language.
“I had fewer problems than others when I first came, as I would see there were a lot of people struggling with speaking English, and many struggled to fit into society and felt like they don’t belong here. A lot of people who get refugee status start working but struggle and many quit working due to the struggles of settling into life here and being mentally not ok.
“The most important part of Action Foundation is the ‘team’, some other places are very paperwork-based and want to keep things professional, and it's hard to create that connection. Whereas here it’s not like that, many clients here are happy to be here."
Since 2006, Action Foundation's ethos has been to 'empower refugees and overcome exclusion'. In March 2020 they launched their Covid-19 CrisisSupport response, supporting refugees and asylum seekers through the first few months of the pandemic, and raised over £11,000 in a few weeks.
Between March and the end of July 2020, they supported 401 beneficiaries with practical support including food, toiletries, and mobile data to keep them connected, as well as making 344 welfare calls. They also delivered key health messages to over 1,000 people every week via messaging services.
Action Foundation CEO Duncan McAuley said: "Refugee Week is an opportunity to celebrate community, mutual care, and the human ability to start again.
“The vision of Refugee Week is that refugees and asylum seekers are enabled to contribute to and live safely within inclusive and resilient communities, which is exactly what Action Foundation aims to help people to do. Through our housing projects, free English language teaching, digital inclusion work, and weekly drop-ins, we help migrants navigate life in their new country.”
For more details on the Baltic exhibition, visit here.
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