Great news at last for our volunteer's asylum-seeking friend

A UK passport
In sight for Janice Gwilliam's friend in Leeds? There's more hope now than at any time since these Northerner posts began. Photograph: Gary Roebuck/Alamy

Well apparently the Big Society is now over - at least it is according to the Torygraph, aka the Daily Telegraph, but as I don't read it I can't vouch for the accuracy of this statement. However my small society will be continuing, as will the blog, now read in Serbia and Egypt, as well as getting quite a following in Latvia.

Anyway, down to the actuality of what my small society has been up to since the break for Christmas and the New Year. 

It started off as a very normal month: Short Stop at Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network (LASSN) and then a visit to my asylum-seeking friend in Leeds. Short Stop was very quiet, just finding overnight beds for the young man from Iranian Kurdistan whom I've placed before and an older man from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). I used to teach children from DRC. Traumatised by the violence they had seen, they mostly still tried to work hard and do well in their studies.

I placed both of them quite quickly and had the bonus of getting a lovely text from some hosts who are away but who could have the man from DRC over the weekend. They are fluent French speakers and it is his main language.

Fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo
Refugees fleeing from fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Photograph: Dai Kurokawa/EPA

My friend in Leeds had had a lovely Christmas, seeing many of her own friends at church, some of whom stayed over in her new home. However she is desperately worried about a woman she knows who is refusing to answer her 'phone, although she is in her flat. She has had a lot of mental health issues and is obviously not well again.

My friend cares enough to put her own worries to one side and worry about someone else in need. This was in spite of problems with her boiler, so I 'phoned the housing provider and arranged to check in a few days if anything had been done. It was leaking badly and I remember how ours did this shortly before it failed altogether.

Then the month suddenly stopped being normal. Just after lunch, my 'phone went - a private number, so should I answer? I did and it was my asylum-seeking friend. She was crying and I became desperately worried. Why wasn't she using her own 'phone? She explained that she was ringing from the refugee agency Solace and handed me over.

It was the best news in the world: she has been given leave to stay for five years. No wonder she is crying. I spoke to her again and amidst the joy and the tears, remembered to check on her boiler. Someone had been round and has ordered a part.

It has been just over three years since we first met, through LASSN. She was incredibly vulnerable, there have been so many downs and only a few ups. But in all that time she has helped as many people as have helped her, a true friend to many. They all wrote to the Home Office supporting her claim. Perhaps some of that helped, we shall never know.

yorkshire coast
It's a path, not a pond. Photograph: janice Gwilliam

The weeks ahead will not be easy; she will have to move again and work her way through the labyrinth that is today's social security system. However I know that as soon as she can she will be contributing back to the community in Leeds that has given her so much support.

Only one week of Coasties before the snow kept us away from the high Moors. It was a fabulous day, sunny, no wind and in the sun we almost got hot as we worked to clear overgrowth from a bridleway. Although we were about four miles inland we were on the edge of a high ridge and could see clearly as far as Filey Brigg and possibly Flamborough Head. As well as the overgrowth, the path was flooded in several places, so blocked drainage ditches were cleared and the floods started to drain away.

coast slip
Not a place to slip. Photograph: Janice Gwilliam

Also before the snow set in, I did a patrol on the, Cleveland Way, south of Scarborough along the coast. There had been a lot of land slips, probably caused by the wet weather and they needed to be checked. I 'phoned in about a couple, probably no worse than a week ago but the professionals will check them again. It was incredibly muddy and I slipped and slid; fortunately not where the path had fallen into the sea.

It's been a busy month too for Fairtrade, both locally in Malton and Norton and in York. We are busy planning for Fairtrade fortnight, 25 February to 9 March, with displays likely in shops and a craft fair on March 9 in Malton at the Friends' Meeting House. This will showcase local crafts and several people will be showing how they make their items, as well as selling them. Here are some examples.


In York, Fairer World in Gillygate, is having to close for about three weeks whilst essential work is carried out on the front of the building. This means that everything has to be packed up and moved to temporary warehousing. It seems like chaos as we make up boxes, pack and label, but gradually a system emerges and there may be light at the end of a dusty tunnel. I'll tell you more next month.

janice gwilliam

Janice Gwilliam is a retired London schoolteacher who blogs monthly for the Northerner about her voluntary work with asylum seekers and refugees in Lincoln Green, Leeds, maintaining footpaths on the North York Moors and working for Fairtrade in Malton, Norton and York.