Greetings from all the volunteers at Manchester City of Sanctuary.

Ramadan is usually a time of community gathering and evening celebrations, but Ramadan can be a painful time for asylum seekers from a muslim background. With few contacts and resources for inviting other people round, it’s often a time of struggle and acute isolation. Several of the sanctuary seekers we know well are destitute, sofa surfing, and yet still trying to keep the fast and be part of the holy month of Ramadan.

If you  are able to open your home to others to join you for an Iftar meal, AND can help with bus fares so sanctuary seekers can get to you, then please get in touch.

At a local training college they recently gave over a whole week to discussing migration and they came up with some significant conclusions. Many of the students were from migrant backgrounds and some were refugees and had space to tell their stories. By the end they concluded that human beings do migrate, as a species. It’s not that some people move and others stay still. We are all on a journey. Some of us have the wealth to travel and come home, others are forced to travel to survive or thrive. We are all both hosts and migrants. (Read further from Northern Baptist College report below)
Fianally,
Please, if you haven’t done so yet, could you to take two minutes to fill in our brief 10-question survey? We want to make the information more helpful and accessible. Here’s the link for you and the other 480 people who receive this bulletin. Simply cut and paste the link into your browser:

https://www . surveymonkey . co . uk/r/YRZKSGL

Thank you again to everyone who managed to fill in the survey previously by cutting and pasting the link. Apologies to everyone else who has discovered the live link is corrupted.
Jane and David, Charles, Anita, Fay, Jeff, Nadine, Maryam, Zhila & Dianne
(Manchester City of Sanctuary Steering Group)

This week was holiday club week for the children from Manchester City of Sanctuary families.
They’ve spent the week learning vibrant, life affirming songs together and have had a lot of fun thanks to the skill and professionalism of Andy & Rachel from PopUK. By Friday the children had learnt enough songs to record a CD. The CD sales (£6 each) will go to launch the MCoS Busfare Fund that enables sanctuary seekers to attend Conversation Club.
Friday’s Community Concert was a great finale:

Contact [email protected]  or Andy Silver at [email protected] if you’d like to see PoPUK in your primary school or running a transition project for years 6&7.

Our Community Concert on Friday was a fantastic finale.If you want a reccommendation, ask the children of St Stephen’s school, Blackburn: https://m . youtube . com/watch?v=0JFhcdb70R0

The Children will be singing again on Saturday 18th June midday to launch Refugee Week at Manchester Art Gallery.

The next monthly Conversation Club is at the Cathedral Visitors Centre next Thursday, 10 Cateaton Street, M2 1SQ, between Selfridges and the Cathedral.   You would be very welcome to join us.
The food, provided by FoodCycle, will be take-away food at the end of the evening so that our fasting members can join in.  The activity will be led by Harriet Morgan-Shami & Tas Perry, and the snctuary Seekers who have been part of the Life Writing Course.

The next Community Meal will be on Sunday 25th June at the end of Refugee Week. We’ll be hearing about Ramadan and celebrating Refugee Week with games and activities from different cultures. 

Conversation Club is a chance for people of the same nationality or who speak the same language to meet and encourage each other and pass on news and advice on surviving in the asylum system.
It’s a chance for British people to share local knowledge and help sanctuary seekers integrate in their new society.

We are looking for 50 local families to shop once a month with an Asylum Seekerfrom June-December.
These are sanctuary seekers who are appealing against their refusal decision from the Home Office and are therefore being supported only by a preloaded AZURE Card.

Could you be a Shopping Buddy too?

Please come and find out more at our Launch evening
Tuesday 14th June at 7-9pm
at TCRC, 11 Richmond Grove, M13 0LN, (behind Longsight Police Station)
192 buses every 10 mins or free parking at the door. 

The Shopping Buddy Scheme pairs up local supporters with sanctuary seekers, who receive limited financial support from the Home Office on a voucher called an ‘Azure’ Card. By shopping together at the supermarkets involved in the scheme, supporters can really make a difference to the lives of sanctuary seekers.
It is very difficult to live without access to cash, especially if you have children. There are many things that can’t be bought in the big supermarkets: Bus tickets, bargains, ethnic foods and secondhand clothes.

If you would like to know more about the scheme or you know someone who needs a Shopping Buddy, please email: [email protected]

We need a shopping Buddy too!

Thursday of Refugee week ,23rd June 7pm -9pm ,we are hoping to bring together sanctuary seekers, volunteers, supporters and workers from across all our refugee and asylum seeker support networks for a Food & Film night.
‘Grow Your Own’ is the perfect film for us: a comdey about some refugees on an allotment project. The Film is at 7pm followed by refreshments.

Tickets are free for all sanctuary seekrs but £5 to working people.
Tickets are available from Jane Graystone  [email protected] sanctuary, Liz Kam :[email protected] or Jaqui from The Heap: [email protected]
Please reserve your ticket in advance.

Please help us to connect new asylum seekers with people who can welcome and help them.

We need small amounts of money to use to pay bus fares. Each Conversation Club needs 60-70 bus fares, each English Class, bike session, theatre ticket, planning group session needs 10-12 bus fares to make it possible for asylum seekers to take part.

We need larger amounts of money to fund our worker after September and to develop many more integration activities. Please alert us if you know of funding opportunities.

You can now sign up for a direct debit form on our website https://manchester . cityofsanctuary . org.
There will be donation boxes and direct debit forms available at each Conversation Club. Please contact Anita if you can help [email protected] or [email protected]

Congratulations to Roger and Charlotte for raising £700 through gofundme.com to provide a 10 week English Class for new arrivals.
Every pledge of welcome helps. #refugeeswelcome

“The objective of the City of Sanctuary movement is to create a culture of welcome and hospitality for those seeking sanctuary, refugees and other vulnerable migrants amongst us” – Inderjit Bhogal, founder of City of Sanctuary 2005