Geoff Reid (c) Louise van der Merwe

Tips

What can you do? Some tips to help migrants in your area.

  1. Invite migrants into your home for a meal and extend friendship to them. Christmas time is a particularly wonderful opportunity to show hospitality to your migrant neighbours and help them feel more at home during this season of goodwill.
  2. Offer to tutor a new migrant in English. If you do not have a personal contact, then you could get in touch with a volunteer organisation such as www.do-it.org.uk and they will be able advise you how best you can help. Alternatively, contact Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (www.ctbi.org.uk) for a local centre that is running English classes for migrants.
  3. If there are migrants, refugees or asylum seekers in your area and no project or services then you could create a drop-in centre. It may take a while to establish, but it can be a lifeline for migrants. You can also use the drop-in centre as a meeting place for community organisations working with migrants or as a place for them to connect with the local Red Cross or refugee action group. In time, the centre could include a service that provides furniture for migrants setting up home.
  4. Offer assistance filling out forms relating to the Job Centre, housing benefit, child allowance and tax credit and bank accounts. You could also help migrants to locate a doctor or dentist and advise them on applying to local schools, particularly ones that can take a number of siblings together.
  5. If you have the backing of your local community, or a local church, you could hold a 'Polish Day', a 'Zimbabwean Day' or whatever is appropriate to your local situation, by inviting local people and migrants to mix together and enjoy a taste of home on the one hand and gain a better understanding of another culture on the other.
  6. Be an advocate for migrants - either in a national context by writing letters to your MP or Government agencies pleading for more rights, or by simply correcting the view that friends and family may have of migrants from some sections of the press.
  7. Ask the Evangelical Alliance if you can host the Don't Be a Stranger photographic exhibition in your area as a talking point on migration and the way the local church and community can get involved. Contact nostrangers@eauk.org.