This is a newsletter with a difference. It is a call to action. We need to expand T4K and rapidly.
Five years ago the Home Office opened a hotel to accommodate families and single women in our city. Now they plan to close it and drive the women and families living there out of Brighton. Unsurprisingly, the people dumped in our city by the Home Office opened their hearts to Brighton. They became part of the town. No human being, let alone a child, should have to live in a mouldy hotel, be fed a monotonous diet of barely edible food and be treated like a suspect on a daily basis. Nevertheless, that’s what our friends have had to endure. But endure they did and, moreover, built friendships and brought joy to their community. Now, to add insult to injury, our community and those connections are being ripped apart.
We are their friends and neighbours. We cannot let the Home Office treat the people of Brighton like this. If the Home Office will not treat people with dignity, the people of Brighton will. There are about 10 people who need homes. They are women from round the world. Many of them are have experienced trafficking. Some of them are lesbian. All of them are brilliant. All of them are Brightonians.
Voices in Exile, Refugee Radio, Hummingbird and the Network of International Women provide professional casework support. The Migrant English Project and Conversations Over Borders provide English lessons as well as social support. Care for Calais provide practical necessities like phones and clothes. The Jollof Café and We Are The Tree are migrant led mutual aid projects. The Quakers, the Table Tennis Club, Jcore and more provide social support. There are artistic projects. There are gardening projects, There are cooking projects. Bestfoot music showcase the musical talent that the Home Office have given to our city. Somebody is going to be offended because I have missed them out.
We have a wonderful city, but people need a place to live. Thousand 4 1000 exists to provide homes. It uses small recurring donations to rent accommodation for people made homeless because of their immigration status. We call on you to support that project with offers of accommodation, with your money or with your skills and time. If we have the resources, we can find the homes. We have a city that can do this. We need to come together.
We want to stand up to the rising tide of hate that would make people prefer to leave the United Kingdom than to live alongside people from elsewhere. We want to embody love. We are proud to be different because difference is the only thing that everybody shares. That needs to be and will be translated into action. When the people of this town say “everyone is welcome here”, it is more than words. Now is the moment to put it into action.
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I know that you already support this project emotionally and financially. This is not a call to ask you to increase your donation. It is a call to spread the project far and wide. To house these 10 women we would somewhere between £8000 and £10,000 a month more, so we need to triple our donor base. We need rooms. We need more volunteers. So please:
- Tell your friends about the problem
- Tell your friends about the project (you could share this newsletter)
- If you have a spare room, sign up to Room for Refugees (and let us know)
- Write to your local councillor and tell them to publicly support the call to keep people in Brighton
- Sign the open letter calling on the council to use its communication channels to amplify our request for support
- Link us up with the media
- Art, music, joy
We can do this. We know what is written on the Patcham Pylons:
Hail guest, we ask not what thou art.
If friend, we greet thee hand and heart.
If stranger, such no longer be.
If foe, our love shall conquer thee.
They were built by public subscription. It is a public subscription that will prove the poem true.
