This Saturday, 22 October “Dialogue for Destitution”, an event of arts and dialogue workshops, a wide variety of evening performances and good food, will bring together the community of Govan, Glasgow and beyond to engage in dialogue about the issue of destitution amongst asylum seekers.
The event will take place at the Pearce Institute, (Govan Road) from 1:00pm until late, and aims to raise awareness and encourage participation in what will hopefully be a much longer-term project.
Responding to shared concerns about destitution
The idea, and ultimately the enthusiasm for this project, arose from shared concerns and conversations. A number of months back as an assignment for a Community Development degree, one of our placements at the Govan and Craigton Integration Network (GCIN) had the task of working towards “empowerment”.
He set up a Men’s Forum on the basis that many of the men going along to GCIN’s drop-ins had expressed a desire to have a space and opportunity to talk about worries, problems they faced or just chat about things that interested them. A recurring topic – and one that many of the men had experienced firsthand and were keen to address, was that of destitution.
Destitution is a devastating reality that many asylum seekers face in the UK when their request for asylum has been rejected and it is far too dangerous to return to their country of origin.
Turning ideas into realities – getting the word out about the Men’s Forum
The Men’s Forum wanted local people to know about it, to understand and to help create home-grown solutions to the problems faced by those who are destitute or face destitution. Their initial idea was to organise a benefit gig, then perhaps begin a campaign. And as more people got involved the ideas grew as did the conversations. Volunteers at the GCIN drop-ins such as myself, community activists, members of other organisations like the Unfinished Picture Project, edge eradica – a Forum Theatre group from Edinburgh, and the Scottish Refugee Council are but a few of the organisations involved.
Creating a dialogue to look at issues and create constructive positive solutions
The potential strength of this project is that it is truly, but also almost accidentally, bottom-up – taking the needs and wishes of people as the starting point!
We are aware, however, that this is also ambitious and the concerns are many, given that through research and the dialogue already in full swing regarding destitution, we realise that the issues go much further and run deeper:
- the question of ‘integration’ and communities as potentially welcoming or hostile environments;
- the emotional impact and the neglected humanity hidden behind cold statistics and abrupt, mainstream-media reporting; and
- the question of activity, of putting something back into communities, of sharing skills, strengths and stories…
Get involved and join in the dialogue
We hope to begin discussing all of these aspects and many more at the event, but in order to create dialogue that produces constructive and positive solutions, and to get this project going in Govan, we also need input, ideas and passion from as many people as possible, so please come along on Saturday!
Find out more about our event and how you can attend on our blog.
