Do We Give Money To Asylum Seekers
How do yous live on £36.95 a week?
It's a question that 39,000 asylum seekers in Great britain are currently grappling with. When people get in in the United kingdom and apply for aviary, they are non allowed to work while they wait for their merits to exist decided. Those who take savings must alive off them; those who are destitute – an understandably high number, given the circumstances in which many people abscond their countries – are entitled to support in the form of housing and an allowance of £36.95 a person a calendar week.
This works out at £1,921.forty a year – slightly more than fifty% of jobseeker's allowance. It is meant to cover everything except housing and bills: food, ship, article of clothing and toiletries, plain. But as well mobile phone plans, so that people can stay in touch on with families back home, toys and activities for children, trips to the hairdresser, school shoes, birthday presents.
And then how is it possible to live on such a pocket-sized amount? We spoke to four groups of asylum seekers about how they survive.
Nesrîn, 30, Binar, 34, Zara, 7, and Ariya, 18 months
Iraqi Kurds living in St Helens, virtually Liverpool
Zara, 7, has spent most of her life in the U.k. and speaks with a potent Liverpool accent. She attends a local master school and doesn't sympathise why she can't take the things her friends have and why her parents don't become jobs and so the family can have more coin.
Nesrîn and Binar accept tried to keep their situation hidden from their daughters. "They don't need to know that we are asylum seekers," says Binar.
He has a chief's caste from a British university. While completing information technology he was contacted by his family to say that threats had been made agains him in Republic of iraq and it was not safe for him to return, so he claimed aviary. He has been waiting on his claim for almost two years, is drastic to piece of work and hates not being able to buy his daughters the things they desire.
"She couldn't participate in gymnastics," says Binar. "Always her friends in school talk about trips – going to the zoo, vacations to places. I looked at going to the zoo and the family unit tickets were I think £65, information technology'southward too much for me. As well, I don't have a machine."
- Nesrin prepares food (height), and some of the family unit's grocery shopping (in a higher place)
Zara's room is busy with stickers and toys, and is overwhelming in its pinkness. Almost everything in hither has been bought at the car boot sale down the road. Her favourite toy is a light-up Hullo Kitty that does not light up, which they bought for £1. When I visited it was four days before Zara'due south seventh altogether and Nesrîn and Binar had been saving for weeks to buy her presents and a block, and to throw her a little political party.
- Stickers in Zara's room, her Hullo Kitty toy and a favourite snack.
"When they come back from the school holiday her friends are talking most what they did, where they went. But we practice nothing. We want to make a altogether party for her so she can talk about that with her friends," says Binar.
He admits he is a soft impact when information technology comes to buying nice food for his daughters. "I always buy the stuff they want – milk, chocolate, ice-cream – I intendance about their demands," he says. "Not sweets, considering I think this is bad for them, simply anything else I try to buy it for them."
This is evident when he returns from the daily shop. Too equally yoghurt, chickpeas, eggs, milk and nappies, he also has choco rice, milk ice-creams, cord cheese snacks and strawberry laces sweets, which Zara rips into as soon as they have been photographed and shares with her sister.
Another difficulty for the family unit is the price of ship. In March, they travelled to Liverpool for the appeal of their asylum case; information technology cost about £50 for them to make the journey. When they got in that location they were told their case had been delayed and they had to return the side by side week.
"They didn't care nearly how we all travel, and so nosotros accept to all travel again the next calendar week for the same amount. They just consider £5 is enough for food, only we need other things," says Nesrîn.
There is no halal butcher in St Helens then Binar travels to Manchester once a month and buys a large box of halal chicken, which they freeze. The day-return train ticket costs £11.
"They give us asylum benefit then nosotros will not beg, just actually we are begging," says Nesrîn. "Sometimes I weep for myself; everything is secondhand, everything is help. I tin can never do something for myself, become to the salon, do something for my pilus. When yous go a mum you have everything dreamed for your girl, and I can't do anything. I've given upwardly, actually."
Mohmand, 43
Afghan, living in Liverpool
Mohmand has spent longer than most trying to live off £36.95. The humanitarian assist worker fled Afghanistan after receiving threats for the work he did with the UN and Red Cross. He arrived in the Great britain in 2013.
More than than two years afterward he received a decision on his asylum claim – a refusal. Well-nigh ii years after that, when he had been in the country for three years and eleven months, this determination was overturned on entreatment and he was given refugee condition. Mohmand spoke to the Guardian less than a week afterwards getting the good news.
Mohmand estimates that after his phone neb, transport costs, gym membership and toiletries – roughly £10 a calendar month – he is left with almost £ii a twenty-four hour period for food and wearable. He goes to the nearby Tesco at 7pm, when they put scarlet stickers on food and reduce the price.
He has photographs of the fridge and shelf in his room in the aviary adaptation where he stores his food. In that location are sometimes fights when people use 1 another's food, accidentally or otherwise.
The pictures show potatoes sprouting furiously, staff of life for 9p, a handbag of lemons for 5p, courgettes for 6p. Mohmand buys a lot of eggs, because they're cheap and he cannot beget meat, he says. Every day he goes to a clemency to get a free lunch.
- Railroad train ticket and grocery receipts
In Afghanistan, Mohmand would clothing a suit and tie to piece of work and on other days, a nice shalwar kameez. At present, almost all his clothes come from charity shops.
Today he has put on ane of his 3 pairs of
trousers (£2, Sunday markets) and his nicest shirt (£1, Aviary Link charity store). "Information technology's my finest shirt, that'southward why I'm wearing it to come up and encounter yous. Merely the sleeves are actually short," he says, holding out his artillery in front of him. "Perhaps that's why information technology was so cheap."
- Mohmand in his all-time shirt (£1), jacket (£1.fifty), trainers (£v) and the rucksack he brought from Afghanistan
Mohmand spent his first wintertime in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland sharing a coat with two asylum seekers he lived with, which meant they had to take it in turns to go out the business firm. Every shop he walked past had coats starting at £thirty or £twoscore, which he could not afford. One mean solar day a friend told him virtually clemency shops. "I didn't know," he says. He now has a jacket (£one.50, Sunday markets) which was badly stained with grease when he bought it and took a lot of cleaning to brand vesture, and a wintertime coat, bought at a charity shop for £2.
His belt is his longest-serving piece of British wear – he bought it soon after he arrived. "When I came to London, I was put in a detention center. I had to clothing my Afghan dress, considering they were more comfortable to sleep in. When I was released they brought me my other clothes, but my belt was missing. I bought this belt from Primark, it was reduced to £iii from about £ten."
The shoes are the newest addition to his ensemble. He bought them for £v two weeks ago from some other asylum seeker who paid £3 for them at the Asylum Link clemency store. "He wanted to make a few pounds" says Mohmand, shrugging.
Mohmand brought his rucksack with him when he came to claim aviary. Information technology contained all the papers he thought he might need to prove his identity and back up his claim: "All my educational activity documents, all the letters, everything I had to testify I'm genuine," he says. In the end, these documents persuaded the judge to grant him refugee status.
Ahive, 36
Iranian, living in Huddersfield
Each week, Ahive, who fled Islamic republic of iran due to religious persecution, has several regular appointments – his English language class, going to church, and Destitute Aviary Seekers Huddersfield (Nuance), a drib-in centre for asylum seekers.
But his most important date is a daily phone call that happens every afternoon at 3:30pm. "The big problem is I need unlimited information to speak on the phone to my family in Iran, and every month this is £25," he says. "It's then I can talk to my wife and [eight-year-sometime] daughter; information technology'due south very important."
- Mobile telephone credit is Ahive's priority each month
Mobile phone credit is the first thing Ahive buys each month; if necessary he will cede food to exercise and then. Ahive's house is northward of Huddersfield, about a 45-minute walk from Dash and his church. A daily bus ticket is £4, though sometimes he buys a weekly ticket, which costs £13. He unremarkably eats lunch at Dash and in the afternoon has tea and biscuits at abode. About days, that'south all he eats.
Receipts for his groceries show he buys small amounts of discounted food, with one glaring exception – one receipt shows he spent £12, roughly a third of his weekly assart, on a bottle of whisky . "It was Iranian new year and I had a political party and all the Iranian people came over," he says, smiling. He does not regret the purchase.
- Ahive'south supermarket receipts and charabanc ticket
Alia, thirty, Zainab, 7, and Ibrahim, four
From Pakistan, living in Huddersfield
Alia has been in the Great britain for six years, and has been living in Huddersfield since she claimed aviary. "When we came to this house it was nothing. It had three broken chairs, no settee," she says. Only she has slowly cobbled together furniture, decorations and toys to make a comfortable home.
Alia spends coin on groceries, clothing, shoes and entertainment for the children. They have a TV, bought from a secondhand market for £30. "At that place is no guarantee that information technology'll piece of work. If information technology works, you're lucky, if non too bad, no returns no refunds."
She spends quite a scrap on entertaining the children, paying to get wifi at the house and to have a Tv licence, which she says is "torture" for her to afford.
Scattered around the business firm are likewise books and toys, almost all of which were given to the family by a charity that helps asylum seekers. There is a puzzle on the tabular array. "Most of the pieces are missing, merely whatever we become, nosotros become from the charity." Fortunately, she says, "At this age, they don't have any idea about new and old as long as they take it."
- The children's books and toys were donated by a charity that helps asylum seekers
The family unit live some distance from the grocery store, so Alia gets a weekly bus ticket – £thirteen for herself and £7.fifty for her daughter – and travels into boondocks several times a week to practice her shopping. At that place is a modest convenience store nearby, only Alia says it'due south too expensive for them to employ. "A bucket of yoghurt, 400g, is £1.45. I said to the woman, it's 45p at Tesco. So we don't shop there. It's better to accept tea without sugar than go there.''
Alia's family unit were affected by changes to payments to asylum seekers in 2015, which saw the charge per unit for children cut significantly. Whereas before she received roughly £150 a calendar week, she at present receives just over £100, which effectively prices them out of anything but charity stores when information technology comes to article of clothing.
"This is a large event. We could get to Primark in the sale, but at present, no. Ane pair of leggings is £6 – that's 1 day'southward allowance." Just even charity shops, she thinks, take got more expensive in recent years.
The about difficult thing is when they have an unexpected expense. A few months ago, Alia was out shopping for ingredients for her son's birthday block when someone stole her telephone. She went for a month without while she saved to buy another one – secondhand, of form.
But she is philosophical nigh these difficulties. "For me it'south all correct. It'south hard, merely at to the lowest degree you lot're safe. We're OK with less money. It's better to be safety and spend less. At that place are more people in worse situations."
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/21/asylum-seekers-allowance-surviving-charities-counting-pennies
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