Sankofa Foundation in Crisis & ASBO social centre disintegration

Amidst the recent dis­in­te­gra­tion of the ASBO project the Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion has been suf­fer­ing and sur­viv­ing, but now the end may be in sight for our Burns Street office.

Sanko­fa ther­a­pist Miri­am Hol­lis recent­ly wrote this mes­sage ask­ing for help, which can also be read on the Sanko­fa blog — sankofafoundation.blogspot.com

The Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion and impact of van­dal­ism in the imme­di­ate short term to the sur­vival of the project

www.sankofafoundation.org.uk

The Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion is a psy­chother­a­peu­tic ser­vice for seek­ers of asy­lum and their fam­i­lies, refugees and those grant­ed human­i­tar­i­an pro­tec­tion. We are based in Not­ting­ham and take refer­rals from Not­ting­ham, Der­by, Leices­ter and South York­shire. In fact, if we have the capac­i­ty, we won’t turn any­one away. We are a not for prof­it ser­vice and we do not receive any state or char­i­ta­ble fund­ing. We offer appoint­ments to any­one who is suf­fer­ing from trau­ma aris­ing from expe­ri­ences of tor­ture, impris­on­ment, vio­lence, wit­ness­ing of vio­lence or sex­u­al assault in their coun­try of ori­gin. We also offer sup­port to peo­ple suf­fer­ing from trau­ma aris­ing from the process of asy­lum and des­ti­tu­tion. Our ser­vices are free at the point of deliv­ery and we rely on dona­tions from sup­port­ers of The Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion.

His­to­ry:

Sanko­fa arose out of anoth­er project which was accessed by young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum and who were with­out their fam­i­lies ( Unac­com­pa­nied Minors). Due to unex­pect­ed fund­ing cuts to the pro­vi­sion of a ser­vice to these young peo­ple, the deci­sion was made to con­tin­ue to offer psy­chother­a­py to those young peo­ple who were in crit­i­cal need. With­out fund­ing or a base, social ser­vices in Not­ting­ham offered a room for meet­ing with their own refer­rals. The ser­vice con­tin­ued and was based in the offices of social ser­vices over three days a week for over a year. Efforts were made to move towards char­i­ta­ble sta­tus. How­ev­er, when Sanko­fa became aware that the Local Author­i­ty in Not­ting­ham were not com­ply­ing with the deci­sion in the Hilling­don case 2003, Sanko­fa need­ed to relo­cate in order to sup­port young peo­ple to access appro­pri­ate guid­ance and legal advice in pur­suit of their rights under the law. Pur­suit of char­i­ta­ble sta­tus was set aside in order to meet the needs of this very busy time.

Social activists had tak­en the occu­pan­cy of a dis­used local author­i­ty build­ing. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the build­ing, which had been three large Vic­to­ri­an three storey ter­races with shared court­yard, had been divid­ed into flats and occu­pied by ten­ants of the local author­i­ty. How­ev­er, the build­ings had been unused for over eight years, apart from casu­al use on a reg­u­lar basis by peo­ple with seri­ous drugs habits, and women sex work­ers. Local res­i­dents were upset by what was hap­pen­ing in their neigh­bour­hood and sup­port­ed the occu­pa­tion of the build­ings by social activists who repaired win­dows and floors, paint­ed and fur­nished and set up projects very quick­ly which ben­e­fit­ted the local area. With­in a short amount of time the build­ing, which had been dete­ri­o­rat­ing fast ( as doc­u­ment­ed by free­lance pho­to­graph­ic jour­nal­ist, Tash) was look­ing occu­pied, the gar­dens were tidied, and the unin­spir­ing back yard was green­ing up with bath tubs and con­tain­ers full of herbs and toma­toes, which nas­tur­tiums tum­bling out of them in full colour in the sum­mer. A Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre was estab­lished ( and entered in the Direc­to­ry of Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tres), and with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, a free shop was opened, invit­ing dona­tions of use­able goods and cloth­ing which were avail­able free to any­one who need­ed them. A Com­mu­ni­ty lend­ing Library was opened, an inter­net cafe, a bicy­cle main­te­nance work­shop, a com­mu­ni­ty arts room with reg­u­lar activ­i­ties for chil­dren, and a free Com­mu­ni­ty meal once a week for any­one who need­ed a hot meal ( veg­eta­bles donat­ed from local green­gro­cers).

Into this busy and engaged space, Sanko­fa was offered a base. Encour­aged to approach the Com­mu­ni­ty by Bill Wal­ton of NNRF Des­ti­tu­tion Group, our orig­i­nal room was in a dis­used ground floor flat, and shared with the Com­mu­ni­ty Print­works who had equip­ment in the kitchen. We had no glass in the win­dows and only one room was use­able due to prob­lems with floor­ing in an adja­cent room. A team worked long into the nights to glaze the win­dows, fix the floor­ing and dec­o­rate. With fur­ni­ture obtained through the freecy­cle net­work and a com­put­er donat­ed from friends in oth­er coun­selling ser­vices, with­in a week, Sanko­fas new ther­a­py room was host­ing a meet­ing which was to have an impact on the pro­vi­sion for unac­com­pa­nied asy­lum seek­ing chil­dren in Not­ting­ham. The Refugee Coun­cil (GB) Chil­drens Pan­el, the Co-Ordi­na­tor of the asy­lum Project at the Chil­drens Legal Cen­tre (Uni­ver­si­ty of Essex), Nation­al Youth Advo­ca­cy Ser­vice (NYAS) and 23 young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum and in the care of the local author­i­ty ( with more pop­ping in and out through­out the day) met to dis­cuss the pro­vi­sion made for them in the area. As a result, The Refugee Coun­cil, the Chil­drens Legal Cen­tre, and a local Fam­i­ly Law Solic­i­tor took instruc­tions from many chil­dren to demand the right to cloth­ing allowances, bet­ter pro­vi­sion in accom­mo­da­tion, and the insti­ga­tion of care plans. The co-ordi­na­tor of the Chil­drens Legal Cen­tre (asy­lum project), now the Pol­i­cy Advi­sor to the Chil­drens ‘ Com­mis­sion­er on chil­dren seek­ing asy­lum, who was due to spend only one day in Not­ting­ham, worked late into the night and through­out the next day tak­ing state­ments from chil­dren. A year lat­er the Refugee Coun­cil Chil­drens’ Pan­el had set up a part­ner­ship arrange­ment with the Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion to pro­vide a month­ly surgery in Not­ting­ham for minors seek­ing asy­lum who had been unable to access care. Although appoint­ments were by arrange­ment the surg­eries were always over­sub­scribed. NYAS set up and gained fund­ing for a tem­po­rary (nine months) post for a work­er to write with young peo­ple, a sur­vival guide to Not­ting­ham. This guide was to assist young peo­ple gain access to sup­port in Not­ting­ham uip to the age of eigh­teen years, and for the imme­di­ate peri­od after this. The appointee under­took the NYAS train­ing for work­ing with young peo­ple and has been able to go on to offer a ser­vice at NNRF once a week for young peo­ple. The Local Author­i­ty has made changed to some of their pro­vi­sion and young peo­ple became eli­gi­ble for ongo­ing care. Although not all the prob­lems were solved by any means, young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum in Not­ting­ham ben­e­fit­ted from being heard con­struc­tive­ly, and a mes­sage has gone out to young peo­ple in Not­ting­ham that they have rights and they can have their rights assert­ed by agen­cies in Not­ting­ham.

Sanko­fa con­tin­ued with the work of meet­ing indi­vid­u­als for ther­a­py. How­ev­er, as a mem­ber of both the Per­son Cen­tred Coun­sel­lors and Psy­chother­a­pists for Social Change, and Psy­chother­a­pists and Coun­sel­lors for Social Change, we acknowl­edge that ther­a­pists reg­u­lar­ly hear sto­ries from dis­ad­van­taged, alien­at­ed and dis­em­pow­ered peo­ple with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty. Sanko­fa Foun­da­tion is com­mit­ted to, and active in, ongo­ing debates with­in ther­a­py about the ground between con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and using our voice to denounce the inequal­i­ties with­in soci­ety that con­tribute to injus­tice and there­fore stress and men­tal health prob­lems. We take more and more refer­rals from GPs who are see­ing des­ti­tute seek­ers of asy­lum in their surg­eries, whose men­tal health prob­lems are exac­er­bat­ed by the lack of care avail­able to peo­ple in this sit­u­a­tion.

Sanko­fa became com­mit­ted to recy­cling bed­ding use­ful to seek­ers of asy­lum made des­ti­tute. Often bed­ding would be made avail­able to seek­ers of asy­lum who had arrived in the City at the week­end when oth­er offices were closed. Local stu­dents in the area annu­al­ly seemed to be in a hur­ry to bin all the house­hold goods accu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing their stud­ies in the City. Annu­al­ly the area around the Sanko­fa office became a rich source of items use­ful to our client group. We obtained a wash­ing machine which allowed des­ti­tute clients to wash their cloth­ing and take new­er cloth­ing from our store cup­boards. Bed­ding became avail­able in vast amounts, as did cook­ing equip­ment and sundry fur­ni­ture. We were able to sup­port peo­ple in makeshift accom­mo­da­tion who had no fur­ni­ture or bed­ding.

Many of our clients have been sup­port­ed to return to solic­i­tors with reports from Sanko­fa, enhanced by the hours of research that post grad­u­ate stu­dents have put into assist­ing peo­ple to find evi­dence in sup­port of their fresh appli­ca­tions for asy­lum. Sanko­fa has reached out to organ­i­sa­tion in Iraq and Ger­many for assis­tance in gath­er­ing pri­ma­ry evi­dence in sup­port of clients, with Ger­man NGOs using their con­tacts with­in coun­tries to make enquiries on our behalf. We don’t give legal advice but we do walk beside clients in their quest for sup­port in obtain­ing infor­ma­tion and evi­dence, help­ing them to learn the skills nec­es­sary, encour­ag­ing con­fi­dence and ulti­mate­ly doing the research on behalf of those too debil­i­tat­ed by the process of asy­lum to try. Of clients who have returned to their coun­try of ori­gin, whether vol­un­tar­i­ly or assist­ed(!) we have endeav­oured to stay in touch. We speak with clients returned to Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Ethiopi­an. (We have con­cerns about the qual­i­ty of com­mit­ment from agen­cies sup­port­ing returns and are gath­er­ing evi­dence in sup­port of our con­cerns.)

A reg­u­lar week­ly film night was held for young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum. Films were select­ed by the audi­ence from a range of films rep­re­sen­ta­tive of, or made in, or by film direc­tors from, the coun­tries of ori­gin of the audi­ence. In the after­noon of the show, a group of young peo­ple would go shop­ping for ingre­di­ents to cre­ate a meal which was shared with the rest of the audi­ence on arrival. As the film was shown, fruit and nuts were shared around the room. At the end of the show­ing young peo­ple would share their mem­o­ries and their feel­ings about their coun­try of ori­gin and the life that they have left behind, the peo­ple that they miss, and the heartache of their lives in their coun­try. These thoughts and feel­ings were sen­si­tive­ly lis­tened to and shared with audi­ence mem­bers from the host com­mu­ni­ty. With these film nights came new and deep­er under­stand­ings and bridges between peo­ple were built. One of the audi­ence on one occa­sion was the neice of a Kur­dish film direc­tor, Karzan Sher­abayani. (With­in a year we assist­ed Karzan to show his new doc­u­men­tary about Kirkuk at the Broad­way cin­e­ma, and to host an event at Robin­hood Chase with guests Shano dance Com­pa­ny — a Kur­dish dance com­pa­ny in the UK who had pre­vi­ous­ly per­formed at the Edin­burgh fes­ti­val).

It wasn’t long before the Com­mu­ni­ty Print works relo­cat­ed to the Sumac Cen­tre and Sanko­fa was ful­ly using the whole space of the orig­i­nal flat. On occa­sions when our clients were detained, groups of peo­ple would col­lect to run cam­paigns to pre­vent the removal of our clients and to help them to get legal advice. There have been many tense and heart warm­ing moments in the anti depor­ta­tion activ­i­ties ema­nat­ing from the office.

Cur­rent Cri­sis

After two years at the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre we must leave. Many of the orig­i­nal social activists have moved on to oth­er projects and Sanko­fa has remained, active­ly respond­ing to the ther­a­peu­tic needs of the asy­lum seek­ing com­mu­ni­ty in Not­ting­ham.

It is with heavy hearts that we are now look­ing urgent­ly for a place to be. Sanko­fa has been the tar­get of harass­ment and vio­lent attacks for a year. With the first attack in the sum­mer of last year, , and this year on five sep­a­rate occa­sions with­in a month. The attacks are so vicious and with­out restraint that it is not pos­si­ble to attempt to repair. On each occa­sion doors have been forced and research papers and fold­ers strewn around, com­put­ers dam­aged and made unus­able. Refugees and sup­port­ers of Sanko­fa have worked into the night on each occa­sion to secure the premis­es for the next day to ensure that client work was not affect­ed. How­ev­er, the attacks have gained momen­tum and we have arrived to see the kitchen door so dam­aged that only the bor­der of the door remained. We have secured inner doors as well as exter­nal doors but final­ly this week, we have arrived to see the back door destroyed again as well as the inter­nal doors, and, more shock­ing­ly, the hot water tank ripped out and water gush­ing all through­out the office and fill­ing up the cel­lar with nowhere else for the water to go. All the win­dows have been smashed, and then smashed again. How­ev­er, the win­dows and doors on the old Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre (unused) and the art room (unused) have remained untouched.

There has been a grow­ing unease about some of the peo­ple who have come to occu­py the dis­used premis­es at the back. On each occa­sion the police have been called and they are increas­ing­ly shocked. Most recent­ly, this week, the police who attend­ed have expressed their own frus­tra­tion, acknowl­edg­ing the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion of Sanko­fa to the area and to the needs of a client group who are increas­ing­ly find­ing it dif­fi­cult to have ther­a­peu­tic and health needs met else­where. More recent­ly we have observed a small group of men, reg­u­lars who fre­quent the back of the build­ing at night, kick­ing at the door, run­ning at the door, but the police have not been able to respond quick­ly enough to make arrests.

At Sanko­fa we have nev­er had large fund­ing. Our fund­ing base has been rel­a­tive­ly small because many donors respond more read­i­ly to the imme­di­ate mate­r­i­al needs of seek­ers of asy­lum, par­tic­u­lar­ly when they become des­ti­tute. We are such a shoe­string oper­a­tion that where there have been short­falls in our income and expen­di­ture (on ser­vice bills) we have paid the bills our­selves. Our ther­a­peu­tic skills are pro­vid­ed with­out fee or salary. Our psy­chother­a­peu­tic reports to Tri­bunal and Immi­gra­tion hear­ings are com­mend­ed for their objec­tiv­i­ty and thor­ough­ness. Our vision has always been big­ger than our bud­get and we have attempt­ed to deliv­er a holis­tic and respon­sive ser­vice regard­less of the lack of fund­ing.

Sanko­fa has been approached on many occa­sions to write – chap­ters on ther­a­py with young peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum, men­tal health care of asy­lum seek­ing women, and more recent­ly for the Jour­nal of Crit­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gy. There sim­ply isn’t the time, because we are run­ning a ser­vice across six days in the week, whilst earn­ing a liv­ing else­where for part of the day. We have been invit­ed to give opin­ion and to con­tribute to com­mit­tee meet­ings of the House of Com­mons, and the House of Lords.

At this moment in time we have nowhere to offer ses­sions next week. The Sanko­fa Office is dam­aged beyond repair. We have a wait­ing list and we are out of funds. Although con­ver­sa­tions are tak­ing place next week with a cou­ple of oth­er organ­i­sa­tions in the field for very tem­po­rary access to space, we urgent­ly need premis­es and funds to help us to con­tin­ue the work that we do. We have des­ti­tute clients who are strug­gling to keep going and the dev­as­ta­tion of the Sanko­fa space has been deeply upset­ting and dis­rup­tive to them. We are try­ing to con­tin­ue with house vis­its – but these nec­es­sar­i­ly take and mean that we see less peo­ple – and by meet­ing peo­ple at NNRF at the des­ti­tu­tion group. We have been in dis­cus­sion with mem­bers of Sudanese and Kur­dish organ­i­sa­tions for a long time about shared spaces and the future vision will be some­where that we can work togeth­er to cre­ate fam­i­ly spaces as well as ther­a­peu­tic spaces with­in a social action con­text.

This is an appeal for funds and/or urgent accom­mo­da­tion. Even tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion will help us to con­tin­ue in the short term. We also appeal for peo­ple with expe­ri­ence of fundrais­ing to help us to con­tin­ue the work that we do, and to help us to extend our ser­vice to those in need. If you would like to talk to us about any aspect of our work please con­tact us by email Miriam@sankofafoundation.org.uk or by mobile at 07866 733223 as our lan­line is not acces­si­ble ion the imme­di­ate short term.

Thank you ..

Kind­est regards,
Miri­am Hol­lis

www.sankofafoundation.org.uk /
sankofafoundation.blogspot.com

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ASBO, The Last Days — for full arti­cle & pho­tos, click on this title link

After many meet­ings and plan­ning, in August 2005, a num­ber of con­cerned indi­vid­u­als took direct action to squat a large house / block of flats. The place had been emp­ty for the pre­vi­ous sev­en years and was in a great state of dis-repair.
…
Because of some bad peo­ple that end­ed up tak­ing over, vio­lent­ly attack­ing peo­ple that tried to stand up to them, the whole project has col­lapsed. Peo­ple drift­ed away being intim­i­dat­ed and at some fear.

There was then an attempt to re-squat the squat, a valiant attempt. But this again was made unten­able by the vio­lent activ­i­ty of only a cou­ple of peo­ple that remained there. Peo­ple being phys­i­cal­ly attacked and intim­i­dat­ed. The asy­lum and refugee project that was also housed there was then sub­ject­ed to numer­ous break-ins and much dam­age done to the build­ing, so that they could­n’t remain.