Community InfoSource – Asylum Seeker Wellbeing Project
Stuart Radose, Chief Executive Officer, Community InfoSource
Since 2021, Corra’s Henry Duncan Grants has included ring-fenced funding committed to Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic-led organisations. This blog is part of a series sharing community stories from Henry Duncan Grants ring-fenced funded projects from 2021, when the funding theme was community-based mental health and wellbeing support.
Thank you to Stuart Radose, Chief Executive Officer at Community InfoSource, for writing this piece for us.
Community InfoSource (CIS) works with marginalised communities in Glasgow, primarily with asylum seekers and refugees, to put their ideas into action and to secure their rights. We are human rights, equalities based and community led.
Over the past year, funding has helped Community InfoSource continue work on our Wellbeing Project. The Wellbeing Project works closely with Community InfoSource’s internal projects and with external organisations to improve the mental and physical wellbeing of people seeking asylum and New Scots in the community. We receive referrals from a variety of organisations, such as the Survivors of Human Trafficking in Scotland, Outdoors For You, Garnethill Multicultural Centre, Women’s Integration Network, Glasgow Life and Woodlands Community Gardens as well as health workers across Glasgow.
The Wellbeing project has three main strands: outdoor social activities, learning opportunities and a bespoke befriending programme. We are seeing unprecedented numbers across our programmes, demonstrating the unmet demand in Glasgow for these vital services.
Outdoor activities
Our outdoor activities such as walks, tours and bike rides provide an opportunity for people experiencing social isolation to meet new people. We have grown our bank of volunteer walk leaders to 12, all of whom have lived experience of the UK asylum system. They design walks that can offer practical support and an introduction to their new city, whilst ensuring a warm and friendly welcome from people with the same language. The increased number of female volunteer walk leaders has meant we could recently launch women-only walks.
Learning
We have grown our bank of volunteer ESOL tutors and increased our face-to-face ESOL provision from 2 to 6 weekly lessons. We also provide digital lessons with data support for learners; this has been particularly useful for people initially housed in Glasgow and then dispersed to locations out of the city – a pattern we see increasingly. CIS also has a strong partnership with Glasgow Clyde College, which accepts referrals from us so that our community learners can interview for SQA-accredited courses.
Befriending & Volunteers
Our befriending programme supports vulnerable people seeking asylum who are experiencing mental health issues, providing one-to-one support with regular calls and social contact. Many beneficiaries are survivors of human trafficking/modern slavery, and almost all struggle with accommodation issues and language barriers. We train our bank of befriender volunteers in befriending skills such as active listening. They are encouraged to plan activities to support their beneficiaries to become more independent and feel more connected to their local community, two vital pillars of wellbeing.
“A changed man”
One of our befriendees is a man from Namibia who was extremely socially isolated. He had previously been the victim of a violent racist attack on a street near his home. This left him feeling scared to leave his home and he resigned himself to staying inside, leaving only to get food, spending as much time as possible sleeping.
After working up the courage to meet with our befriending coordinator, he was matched with a befriender. His befriender is a similar age and background and shares his love of football. Together they took part in a football tournament and board game club, all of which helped him to make new connections and feel more confident. He had never tried art before, but decided to come to all our sessions – he found the mandala drawing incredibly relaxing and has also discovered a passion for working with clay.
Since meeting his befriender and participating in our activities, he says he feels like a changed man. He is no longer scared to leave his home and ensures he gets out every day, even just for a walk around his local park. He has made friends, learned new skills and discovered new interests. Instead of feeling angry and alone, he feels connected to others and has a new sense of motivation. He has accessed a range of our services and, after 14 months, has now applied to become a volunteer at Community InfoSource.
Challenges:
Political landscape & impacts: We constantly have to monitor and respond to the political landscape, meaning adaptations to our services to meet the needs of our community members. In particular, we predict increased destitution and higher risk of detention and removal, which will exacerbate already poor mental health and compound the stress experienced by our service users.
Meeting need: Community InfoSource is reviewing its service provision to consider expansion outside of Glasgow, due to increasing demand. This includes via digital services, good practice guides and delivering training for support services operating in these areas. We also act towards plugging a gap in the sector, by supporting people who receive positive cessation notices (eviction notices given to asylum seekers who have recently received asylum, in effect evicting them from their home office property). We’re developing our digital workshops to support people experiencing digital exclusion and aim to increase one-to-one support services alongside our usual drop-in sessions.
Find out more:
Community InfoSource – Home New
