I am grateful but I am scared…
Inspired by Refugee Week’s Simple Acts campaign, Bevan encouraged patients and staff to share their migration stories and one woman shared this heartfelt and moving story of her experience of being and asylum seeker. It’s honesty and integrity in the face of the trauma of the asylum system make this a must read for anyone interested in knowing more about what it actually feels like to be an asylum seeker in the UK today.
“I am grateful,” she says “but it still hurts. Once you claim asylum and ask for support, you are turned into an object. You will be moved without notice from north to south and east to west. Once you ask for financial support, you will never be able to predict where you will be sent. How long you are going to stay. You won’t know what is waiting for you. In seconds, you will be moved like a chess pawn from square to square, and you need to be ready to move within a second. Don’t complain because you already agreed to lose the right to choose…… but I feel like I have lost myself…… I am an asylum seeker, a safety seeker. I am a homeland seeker.”
READ HER FULL STORY HERE:
Everyone, no matter how small, has a story of migration in their family. It may be from one city to another or many generations ago. If you are inspired to share yours, we are asking people to share their stories with us so we can build an archive of migration stories which shows that migration is something that unites rather than divides us. So please share yours here: