On Friday I saw my great friend Shahidul Alam, the eloquent photographer
and campaigner, in the street, rushing as ever - based in Dhaka but passing
through London, on a multitude of duties, to speak on culture and migration
at a conference in East London and connecting, encouraging, incubating,
and engaging – a true world citizen, wandering the world advocating for great
photography and pointing his intelligent finger in a friendly but sharp manner at
those who dare to portray the majority of our world as the ‘other’ the poor and
needy - as supplicants.
And now here - the steady crushing of the hopes, needs and humanity of
this ‘other’ - in our own community, how is it that those who seek ‘refugee’
have become ‘asylum seekers’? changing the sense of us offering ‘refuge’ - to
the ‘outsider’ seeking something from us . How is it we no longer want to portray
ourselves as offering refuge? Instead we must fight off those who seek to take
something from us, that refugees / asylum seekers are ‘beneficiaries’ who ask
and do not give.
This absurd and dehumanising system was created by the last government and
is due to be intensified by the present coalition, it prevents refugees working and
making a contribution, punishes them by denying them basic human rights and
even appropriate legal representation, the recent bankrupting of the Refugee
and Migrant Justice service- through overdue payments from our government,
are clear evidence of this.
And London? this wonderful rich city- our vivid culture, excitement and
possibilities - all fuelled by wave upon wave of people - washed upon our once
more welcoming shores, by cruelty, brutality and prejudice – the Huguenots
honoured now, the Jews recognised now, the South Africans at last in charge
of their own destinies, welcoming hosts of the worlds football dreams - always
grateful for the warm embrace of our own dear London, which became the nerve
centre of their struggle. Oliver Tambo revered leader ANC for over 25 years-
found peace and safety in Muswell Hill.

Written by Lyndall Stein

I must admit I was very lucky! I was supposed to leave Santiago de Chile on Monday, 7PM, but when we went to the airport the flight was canceled. Since we checked out of the hotel, we needed a new place, but luckily the hostel to which my fellow GVers (Global Voices volunteers) moved after the Summit conference had exactly two free beds!

I am so happy I was not alone! Not only did we share the costs of travel and stay, but also comforted each other that the flights will be back to normal the following day (Tuesday).

Even though I had this support of another person, and of other GVers, I woke up with uneasy feeling of uncertainty. And I somehow did not plan to stay in a hostel, so I had to borrow a locker, had no tower...you know...those little things...

Over the breakfast I had an interesting discussion about refugees and people who have nowhere to go back to. Chile experienced earthquake recently, which made us all contemplate the feelings of loss, lack of roof over ones head and means to travel or even survive.

Me - I was lucky, as I said. I had a dinner waiting, breakfast and bed for 10 USD, as well as very understanding directors, who themselves experienced restrictions due to volcanic ashes over Europe. Otherwise I would have to worry about the job as well!

(I am sorry, I am writing everything at once, but I just got home and need some proper sleep, but I think it's worth updating you too)

So on Tuesday I managed to find out that the Chilean Airlines provide additional plane to Madrid so I can get my flight and connection to London, which made my day. It also made me realize how hard it is, if you do not speak the language - English speaking call center picked up my call in Spanish or kept me waiting. It is only thanks to hostel receptionist's good will to help that I was on the bus to the airport just after breakfast, and on the plain itself at 2PM (Santiago time).

In Madrid I was told I need to wait for a place on the plane to London, but not long, so I managed to meet few other 'GV refugees'. One had to wait until 8PM to get his flight! Whole day wasted, but happy he got to go to Venice at all as there was no places earlier!

So I am home now, but I missed welcome of my son - he was fast asleep when I arrived. At least I will wake up seeing his smile.And I slept all together 8 hrs in last 2 days...

I seriously thought it might last for a week or so - I would be pretty upset. I could not live of coffee and airport pepsi or at the hostel for so long knowing this young man is waiting for me here, in the UK.

I have no idea how people can stay away from home for longer than few days....and as for refugees...now I do know at least few elements and challenges of their life, so I feel closer to the cause of this blog myself. And me - as I said - I was very, very lucky!

...I am re-evaluating everything I know about refugess...

I am at the Global Voices Summit this week in Santiago, Chile discussing really interesting issues related to activism and citizen journalism for a cause, however at the back of my head I still have this map:

It seems to me that we take too much for granted. I need to be back in Oxford on the 12th and I am flying via Madrid, so I do worry a bit. It's also hard to enjoy myself fully remembering my conversations with other European 'refugees' who got stuck last time the flight were suspended. Even int he age of new media we still need to meet face to face, we still travel - but the shadow of even a potential danger of being unable to return home makes me uneasy.

I left Oxford knowing the volcano in Iceland is waking up again, but I somehow managed to put it aside due to the excitement of meeting many Global Voices friends I only know from on-line conversations. Now however I cannot stop but think about my way back home, the pleasant tiredness of getting of the plane at Heathrow and heading towards Airline Bus to Oxford, followed by my little local bus to my town where my little 4 year old is going to jump on me in joy (asking for the 'big, big, big, big police car' I promised to bring him;)).

I really hope I will be able to cuddle him on Tuesday evening!

Wish me luck!

 

One more time BIG THANK YOU for your support! Apart from £160 donated directly to our cause, we have raised £500 via our dedicated Just Giving page! What a great achievement! But please do not stop - take the widget, share it and support us in any way you can!:)

I have thinking of all the real refugees and how hard it must be to  be driven in to exile - real refugees often have so few choices and often no way home.
I am in  Berlin with friends and how sad it is to think of all the Jewish people driven into exile, wandering refugees with no home to return to and now so many Palestinians who themselves are forced to to seek refugee- unable to return to their homes.
Our Zimbawean refugees long for home but are not free to return - they cannot make free choices in a country still ruled through fear. The Zimbabwe Assoc. helps so much providing places where refugees can meet seek comfort and a warm meal- a taste of home.

Sent by Lyndall.

Here is how our refugge, Lyndall, promotes our story and campaign:

Dear All

There are some Spanish olive oil biscuits in the kitchen, but just want to tell you I had a 21 hour journey to get them to you! – this has to be filed under ‘Things you take for granted’ and perhaps also filed under  ‘Things you should not do!’

In fact it is exactly the kind of behaviour we are always warning others about – so I am hanging my head in shame …that I would even consider a weekend trip to Spain, my only defence is that I went as part of a volunteer group who are helping a small international charity The Resource Alliance, who  in turn, help people all over the world to do better fundraising . I was there as part of the international voluntary advisory group, who were working on the plans for the 30 anniversary conference of the annual conference the International Fundraising Workshop.

I must confess that I was also lured by the promise of tapas and the prospect of a spare afternoon to see the Prado (never been to Madrid before)

So under the ‘Things you take for granted’ it seemed quite ok for this group from Geneva, Stockholm, Amsterdam and London to meet with one of the other panel members who lives in Madrid  and who had volunteered to host the meeting.

I met two colleagues in London,  all of us on the last flight out of Heathrow, and believe it or not, we were pleased with ourselves for getting the ‘last flight out’ a careless assumption that this would not mean  - no flight back out!.

Well it started to unravel the Geneva bound member, who works for the UN in Geneva, just got out Friday evening

On Friday evening we were still in a happy go eat some tapas mood, but by Saturday morning it all felt bad … and one of our group had to get to Stockholm !.

Luckily for me my charming Dutch colleague decided to just get a car and drive back and find some other ‘refugees’ and  so we did, we found a German chap at the car hire queue – I just decided he was ok as he was laughing about his predicament,  he had been  at a pan European workshop on digital  preservation and one of his colleagues the Professor in charge  had to get back to where he lived on the edge of the aortic circle in Sweden.

So off we went left  Madrid  to go North dropped the Prof off in Paris,he  was getting a coach to Copenhagen and then had another 2000 kilometres to go , I got dropped off at Calais where via my Blackberry my clever sister in London managed to book me one of the last Eurostar seats – so here  I am  -ready for work and the biscuits ready for you –don’t all rush at once there are only four!

And the moral of the story ?  could we have done the meeting on the phone? Video conferencing? and got home delivery of taps while watching film clips of the Prado?

And what good came out of it ? being a group of fundraisers we set up a fundraising initiative   Refugees4Refugees  to turn our discomfort about being temporary refugees, into donations for the wonderful Zimbabwe Association, who support real refugees - not those of us fortunate enough to have choices, resources and most of all freedom of movement.

Cheers

Lyndall

We have been in touch with Zimbabwe Association today, who has welcomed our initiative and supported all the way!
We have a dedicated JustGiving page now, so please click here and check it out. It also means that you can support us by embedding our widget or blogg badge to your site. Here are the codes:

JustGiving Widget, which shows the status of our efforts!

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" height="230" width="150" align="middle" data="http://www.justgiving.com/widgets/jgwidget.swf" flashvars="EggId=2466923&IsMS=0"><param name="movie" value="http://www.justgiving.com/widgets/jgwidget.swf" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="flashvars" value="EggId=2466923&IsMS=0" /></object>

This is how it will look like on your page:

 

 

You can find out about our cause on their Facebook fan page too, however Sarah Harland from Zimbabwe Association talked to me today about their organization over the phone:

 

Thank you in advance for all your support!

Pic of me at kings cross after 20 hours travel

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device sent by Lyndall Stein