Seeking asylum – the courage to start again
It takes a great amount of courage for someone to leave their country to seek asylum in another; to leave their home, friends and family for the worst of reasons and make an often difficult journey to another country in a completely different part of the world.
Complicated questions
Families need to make courageous decisions and often ask themselves a lot of questions like: Will my children be happy in another country where they don’t know the language? How will we be treated in another part of the world? How will I support my family whilst we seek protection from another country’s Government and how will my health needs be met and what happens if we are refused asylum?
Women seeking asylum face great challenges
Research by Scottish Refugee Council has shown that it is questions like these that make female asylum seekers the most fearful about the future and most uneasy about the present.
The need for asylum seekers to be courageous doesn’t stop once the physical journey is over; more specifically, for mothers seeking asylum with their children the need to stay strong never goes away- even though it is hard to remain positive all the time. With more than one person depending on them, it is often the women who need to summon the courage to say, “I need more support here.”
Scottish African Women’s Association (SAWA)
The Scottish African Women’s Association (SAWA) was founded because of the need for support and the desire to help. SAWA’s objectives are to:
- assist, share and inform women on various issues that affect them;
- to advance the development and life of African women living in Scotland and in Africa;
- to increase active participation and involvement of African women in strategies and poverty related issues,
- empower women and girls to define and defend their rights, increase their self esteem and sense of choice, and
- promote health and wellbeing, as well as racial harmony between, host community and other ethnic groups in Scotland.
Attend our upcoming Refugee Week event
SAWA aims to help women support themselves and their families; this why we’ve organised a free event on 24 June at Garnethill Multicultural Centre. It is an opportunity for women to meet others in a supportive environment and get free clothes, which will hopefully make things just that little bit easier. With the summer holidays fast approaching, a new jumper acquired for free, for instance, may help to provide a mother with some much-needed extra cash to do something else with her children.
