One million dollars
Oct 2nd, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
There are moments in life that need to be celebrated. There are remarkable milestones that stand proudly for the accomplishments of a team, the dedication of their supporters and the gratitude of their beneficiaries. By the end of August 2011, Vision First spent the first one Million Dollars on direct welfare to its members, solving their most pressing needs. It should be noted that we pay *zero* dollars in salaries, rent and administration, which guarantees that every cent is meticulously dedicated to relieving hardship were it’s most acute. Despite the scourge of inflation, 1,000,000 dollars is a lot of money! Most significantly, given our broad donor base – whose generosity made this possible! – this amount reflects the kindness of everyone who took to heart the plight of refugees and stepped up to make a real difference. To each of you, our 400 grateful members offer the sincerest: “THANK YOU!”
Today we honour each donor on behalf of the dozens of refugees we assist daily, those visiting our centre with needs nobody else can meet, those relying on us to solve overwhelming difficulties, those made destitute by an existence they never imagined back home. When they thank us, they are really thanking you. When they praise and bless us, we transfer it back to you! It is said that a refugee is an ordinary person in an extraordinary situation, and we are simply honoured to alleviate somewhat the cruel fate that uprooted and brought them cap-in-hand to our doorstep. When confronting the horrors of which humans are capable (Homo homini lupus est), it’s impossible to remark, “I know how you feel!” Nobody but fellow refugees can sympathize with the calamity of exile, the shame of destitution and the heartache of loneliness that seeking asylum entail. However, the single most important role Vision First plays is undoubtedly being People who care – dedicated citizens who rise above the humdrum of society and the meaningless preoccupations of modern life to truly be their brother’s keeper.
This has been an outstanding year already: we serve 400 members monthly with our cutting-edge Online Booking System, we opened a rent-free office, we launched the only refugee shelter in town, we raised a record 180,000$ in one event and have distributed 1,000,000$ in real, tangible assistance! As far as charity goes, we are proud that Vision First has raised the standard again. We think different, we act different and we make the difference. Who would have guessed this band of friends could have inspired so many without institutional sponsorship or corporate backing? Two years ago we were challenged with, “What is the sense of such a small effort when there are thousands of asylum-seekers?” Doubt never infected our hearts: the Great Wall of China was built one brick at a time and every journey starts with one small step. No effort is too small when helping others and by casting our pebble into the pond, it was the ripples that inspired others to join our efforts to make Vision First the success it is today. Why sit down and feel helpless when there is so much suffering in the world, indeed, in our city? Why accept a rotten system when you can create a better one? Reaching the first million was hard work. It took the sacrifices and resoluteness of many passionate individuals who gave up much to achieve a shared dream. Today nobody doubts we will reach ten million dollars in the coming years … cautioned by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s reminder that, “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams!”
Asylum seekers stuck in slow lane
Sep 27th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
SCMP on Sep 27, 2011
Protection of fundamental rights and adherence to the rule of law are core values. We strive to ensure everyone in society is treated fairly, regardless of status, race or nationality. To do so, robust institutional safeguards have been made – and there are appeal channels for the aggrieved who want to seek redress. That said, there is no room for complacency. The screening arrangement being put in place for asylum seekers is a case in point. The process remains so shamefully slow that some may feel helpless and are therefore tempted to exhaust different ways in the hope of getting their cases noticed. Last week, this paper reported that five inmates in an immigration detention centre have been refusing food for more than a month. The hunger strike came after some were allegedly beaten. They were all believed to be asylum seekers, some of whom having stayed in the city for up to two years already.
The situation does little credit to a city that prides itself on being a tolerant and humane society. It highlights the urgent need for an effective mechanism that could guard against abuses while being able to help those with genuine needs. It is a pity that the inmates have chosen to seek attention by hurting themselves. Four of the five, weak and vulnerable, were staying at the centre’s medical bay. They need not have resorted to such extreme action to make their point. Others discontented with the delay should not be encouraged to follow suit. Thanks to a series of court rulings that effectively struck down the previous regime, the government is finally pushing ahead with a law seeking to back up the safeguards under a so-called enhanced mechanism for torture claimants adopted since late 2009. But the outlook remains gloomy, with only 1,200 torture claims handled in the following 18 months. Of these, decisions were made on only some 500. Hopefully, the blueprint tabled to Legco in July can be enacted no later than next summer to help clear some 6,700 outstanding torture claims. Otherwise, the bill will lapse and the legislative process will have to start over again in the new term beginning in October next year.
Clearing the backlog of torture claims is only part of the challenge. Hong Kong has still not signed the UN Convention on Refugees, arguing that abuses may follow if we do so. The separate queue for screening asylum seekers by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has unnecessarily complicated the matter. The government’s reluctance to take on refugee screening is understandable. The ordeal in handling tens of thousands of Vietnamese asylum seekers in the 1980s has made officials wary of taking any steps that might see another influx. But fears about being swarmed by bogus claimants are not reasons to shut out the valid ones. We must have a system in place which ensures claims are processed quickly and fairly.
In the mind of a refugee
Sep 22nd, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
The minds of refugees never stop running, day or night. Even if you come to HK as a normal, bright and optimistic person eventually over time you become a little crazy. If you look at those asylum seekers who have been here for a long time, say five to seven years, sometimes as little as two, their personality has already changed. They are not the person they were when they arrived. Why does this happen? What drives us to this insanity? Well, we spend a lot of time with each other and we can see how our friends’ mind deteriorates and loses its grip on reality. One good friend flipped recently, he suddenly lost hope and didn’t care what would happen to him even crossing the road. Refugees worry too much. This is the biggest poison for our brain. Some people become hot tempered, others impatient, most lose hope and everyone becomes very *forgetful*. I see it even with myself. When I first came to HK I used to remember everything that happened, both many years ago and last week. However now I have become so forgetful. My mind is always running here and there, like I cannot control it, as if it’s doing its own thing without consulting me! When I sleep, maybe my outer body is sleeping but my mind is RUNNING and always TALKING. At times I wake up with a jolt and murmur to myself, “Oh my God I don’t want to become mad in this place!”
I lay in bed every night and sleep doesn’t come for ages. Sometimes it takes more than five hours to fall asleep – it’s totally insane! At times I’m still lying there at dawn and don’t fall asleep until morning. I worry too much. What’s going to happen to my life? How am going to pay rent? What about my electricity bill? Where are all these years going? How will my UNHCR case be resolved? Will Immigration call about my torture case? What will happen if they refuse me … will I be deported? Will I be arrested? If they send me back to my country, I know I will be detained and tortured. This is crazy! Who can live in this state of extreme anxiety and NOT go crazy? At night I feel that my legs and body are sleeping, but my brain isn’t switching off. What I would give for a good night sleep! I don’t even remember what it felt like to wake up fresh. My mind carries on churning, thinking without me wanting to. These are not my thoughts. These are worries I can do nothing about and they are dragging me down into an abyss I cannot extract myself from. I want to rest but my mind doesn’t listen to me; it worries, it fears, it’s overwhelmed by depression and anxiety, relentlessly. It’s not easy to describe: imagine your heart at rest, hardly feel its heartbeat, and compare it to your heart after running a race, when it pounding out of your chest. So I feel that my brain is ‘beating too fast’, churning thoughts I cannot stop or control. It’s exhausting! This constant worrying night after night, month after month, is the most debilitating torture. It zaps your energy as it strips you of your sanity!
When I look at my life, I feel that everything is moving too slow. Nothing good is happening. My last UN interview was at the end of 2010 and still no news. I don’t even want to go and change my appointment slip because I know that nothing has happened, nothing has changed and they are just going to give me another slip of paper. Why am I staying here? Perhaps it’s just better to return to my country and die there. I’m tired. I cannot take this waiting and hoping, hoping and waiting when there is nobody encouraging me. My family is far away. My children haven’t seen me for four years. They hardly remember my face. They ask their uncle, “What did my father look like?” I suffer this massive guilt of having left loved ones behind, having failed to care for them, to provide for their education and future. I might have saved myself, but I have disappointed my family. I thought I could find safety and asylum in HK, then bring my children out of my country, but years have gone by, my passport has expired and I have no way of resolving my personal problems by myself, without somebody’s help … and yet I’m helpless – Johnnie (36) East Africa
Drummers set the beat at Solas
Sep 5th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Yvonne Lai writes in SCMP, on Sep 05, 2011
After the success of its “No Nation Without A Donation” fund-raiser last year, refugee charity Vision First decided to bring the event back bigger and louder at Solas in Wyndham Street on Thursday. As a team of African drummers set the beat for an evening of raffle ticket sales and heavy drinking – in the spirit of community service, of course – 10 guest bartenders sporting electric-blue sequinned bow ties geared up for rapid rounds of charity bartending for a packed house.
“I’ve had plenty of practice drinking – but not so much mixing drinks,” Anand Singaram said before his round. “My strategy is to serve lots of beer.” Fellow guest bartender Katherine said: “I’m a hedge fund manager with zero experience tending bar. I’m just going to throw a bunch of stuff together and hope it tastes like a cocktail. I imagine I’ll get yelled at a lot.”
It would seem that the collective lack of bartending experience did not slow the drink orders. Vision First education director Tiffany Sturman tallied up donations surpassing the HK$100,000 target at the end of the evening. [Edit: raised over 180,000$] “There were definitely many memorable moments throughout the night, but I think everyone can agree that our African drummers helped put everyone in a festive mood right from the start,” Sturman said.
“Their energy and rhythm flowed through the crowd and built momentum, which our guest bartenders were able to capitalise on.” The funds raised will go towards Vision First’s Graduate Equivalency Diploma programme, which will help Hong Kong refugees choosing to resettle in the United States and Canada.
There is no camp!
Aug 31st, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
We have heard from many members that persistent rumors are circulating among refugees in Hong Kong, saying “In 2012 all asylum-seekers will be sent to a camp on a secret island!” It is reported that after being imprisoned in The Camp, nobody will be allowed to leave. In The Camp there will be fast-track CAT screening and rapid deportation of failed cases. Since the Immigration Department is efficiently denying asylum to the hundreds of claimants processed so far, it is feared that nobody will succeed. Rumors are circulating that The Camp is being built right now by Immigration to house not only adults, but also families with children – no matter their age. Nobody will be released on Recognizance (Big ID) as these will be cancelled. Which island has been selected isn’t sure. However, it will not be on a big one, like Lantau, but rather on a small one, isolated from the others and not reachable by public ferry – to ensure total isolation of this refugee community.
Many members are genuinely afraid. They have heard this rumor from many sources (none of them official) and they are very concerned this report will become truth as more and more people are discussing it. Vision First heard it already in June and now the unfounded speculation is reaching a new dimension as it spreads through the corridors and stairwells of Chung King Mansion. People are saying The Camp was approved by Legco in June and construction started on a secret island already in July, with expected completion by year end. It is feared that after Christmas there will be a sudden rounding up and arrest of 6,700 asylum-seekers (with their children) who will be banished and isolated on this dreaded island. It is no exaggeration that refugees are already sweating and that is not because of the summer heat!
Please rest assured this is nothing but malicious gossip, probably stemming from incidents in other countries. The rights of asylum-seekers and refugees in Hong Kong are monitored by many activists, lawyers and concerned citizens who would never allow such arbitrary incarceration. Our practical advice is for everyone to resist the drama of speculation, but to inquire directly to trusted sources about important information … and don’t believe the scare-mongers 🙂
Shazia: the senseless murder of a mother
Aug 27th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Shazia came to Hong Kong in September 2009 from the dusty Pakistani Milpur region. There her family struggled amid corruption, violence and escalating militancy for decades, until forced to find sanctuary abroad. Nothing could have prepared them for the twisted fate that saw Shazia murdered by her estranged husband on Tuen Mun beach last week. Hers was a life of hardship till the bitter end, an existence that prompts reflection on our tenuous grip on life. Shazia (her full name in a culture that normally lists father and grandfather too) was introduced to Vision First by ISS in an email lamenting the theft of her paraplegic son’s wheelchair. This unscrupulous act started a chain of positive events with our charity kicking into action. And yet we wondered, “How could anyone steal a handicapped kid’s transportation?” That sense of unreal permeated the life of this diminutive, gentle mother who struggled against adversity with resolute purpose and admirable perseverance. In the wake of complex events, Shazia abandoned her hometown when death threats against her children proved too much to bear. Since her husband fled to Hong Kong in 2006, her predicament worsened and peaked with armed thugs assaulting her to discover his whereabouts. At that point she knew escape was her only option.
Forced from the familiarity of her hometown, Shazia embarked on an arduous trip across Pakistan, Guangdong and finally to Hong Kong. The fact she was a single Muslim mother with three young boys – the youngest with congenital hydrocephalus always in her arms – made travelling more arduous. She begged her way through China to a coastal village, where smugglers extorted every last dollar to ferry them across the waters. Without a HK visa, she had no choice but to brave the illegal crossing that almost cost her sons’ life. This was the night of her deepest terror, she later recalled. She couldn’t swim and neither could her frightened children. The flimsy speedboat jetted through pitch darkness over what she feared where abyssal waters – she’d never seen the ocean before, you see. Suddenly the men tossed them overboard into neck-high waters and, grasping for her screaming kids, she was helpless to save the bags that drifted away with their scant belongings in the propeller wash.
In the safety of Hong Kong, a benign fate might have smiled upon her, instead Shazia found her life to be marooned between survival and hopelessness. We first met her when she shared a hellhole in Chueng Sha Wan with another family, a place so small Shazia slept with the boys on one mattress in a doorless room. Our first commitment was to buy Hadi a wheelchair. It was too stolen within a week! However, this time, remorse anguished the thief who returned it to their doorstep three days later. That was our clue Shazia required a home with a lift, as she couldn’t leave those precious wheels unattended for a minute. With ISS help Shazia moved into a decent home along Nam Cheong Street and VF ensured they had everything they needed. The next stage was ensuring the boys attended school and the Education Bureau did everything possible to ensure placements, even for Hadi at a special school with door-to-door transport. Within months the kids flourished, scoring high points on tests which we celebrated with ice-cream in the park. Today we realize those were the happy days: they came running to hug and smiled with confidence as they adjusted to their new environment with youthful excitement. Meanwhile, Shazia studied English one-on-one with our tutor and shared the sadness of explaining to her sons why they couldn’t afford the stuff and outings their classmates enjoyed. There’s no easy way to deal with this, as every refugee parent knows all too well.
Below the surface not all was well. After putting her sons through the wringer of exile, instead of finding the peace she deserved, Shazia found heartache discovering her husband had taken up with another woman – apparently marrying her and having a baby. This plunged her life into a second ordeal of which she had had no foreboding. Her dreams of reunion, that strengthened her from the Kashmir Mountains to the streets of Kowloon, shipwrecked onto the rocks of betrayal. Instead of gaining her husband’s support, she suffered rejection. Imagine coming so far, through hardship and despair to witness the breakdown of your family! There’s something unreal about it. The boys hardly saw their father and together rallied in support of their beloved mother. Today these kids’ family and home have been smashed by a senseless act that nobody will ever understand. Human nature can still be as wild as ever it was! Words fail to describe the loss these three brothers suffered. Their mother was taken from them at an age when they needed her most. At least they still have each other and we hope they won’t be separated by social services. They’ve suffered enough.
Our members who didn’t know Shazia, referred to her as the ‘elegant Pakistani woman,’ despite her always wearing the same drab clothes. It was her stoic demeanor, her dignified comportment, that something-different-about-her that made her stand out as a person of profound strength. We once visited a doctor and she carried eight year-old Hadi without resting a moment, without yielding to fatigue as we waited endlessly for a rush hour taxi. She appeared unfazed by hardship she’d handled so much without ever yielding. She never complained or allowed the slightest sigh to betray irritation at her many burdens. Shazia projected a resoluteness that went beyond the ordinary, beyond what is expected of mothers in extraordinary circumstances. She was blessed with a character that inspired others to face adversity with unvanquished confidence – if she could do it, certainly others could too! We often spoke with admiration about her determination. She was a paragon of humanity for all who knew her, both refugees and citizens. Her sudden departure reminds us that the true value of a person is only felt in their absence. It shouldn’t have been this way for Shazia, not with three young sons whose precarious life depended entirely upon their mother. While her senseless death raises tough questions, it also elevates Shazia as a shining example of an indomitable spirit in adversity. There might be little good in a refugee’s life, but it’s how they bear themselves under physical and psychological pressure that makes them worthy of our respect. The challenge now is how to help these three kids …
1 September charity event at SOLAS – 6:30pm
Aug 18th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
It was a roaring success! Thank you for your support!
Beacon of Hope
Aug 15th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Gordon Mathews writes in SCMP, Aug 13, 2011
Many people in Hong Kong regard Chungking Mansions with fear. Indeed, several weeks ago a columnist in this newspaper echoed the call often heard in the early 1990s that Chungking Mansions should be torn down. But the building has significantly changed from what it was 20 years ago. At that time, the building really was a hazard, with a Danish tourist dying in a fire in 1988, a week-long electrical blackout in 1993, and South Asian gangs demanding protection money from businesses.
Today, the building is quite different. This is largely because the Incorporated Owners of Chungking Mansions have, over the years, made it more salubrious, putting in new elevators and CCTV cameras, as well as guards and fire alarms. Crime rates are lower than in many other buildings in Hong Kong, police say, and although the risk can never be discounted, no one has died from a fire in the past two decades. I stayed in Chungking Mansions one or two nights a week from 2006 to 2010 for my research as an anthropologist. I found that the biggest risk I faced was not from fire or crime in Chungking Mansions, but rather that of being run over by a taxi on Nathan Road. This is one reason Chungking Mansions should not be feared by people in Hong Kong: it is a safe place. But there is a deeper, more important reason the building should not be feared but celebrated. The people in Chungking Mansions and the people in Hong Kong at large mirror each other in their values. I have often observed (using the down-to-earth ethnic designations I sometimes hear in Chungking Mansions) the “yellow” and “white” people emerging from upscale bars and restaurants on Nathan Road late on Friday and Saturday evenings and passing by the “brown” and “black” people sitting outside Chungking Mansions: the two groups eye each other with mutual incomprehension.
But, if they were to talk, a remarkable parallel might become apparent. Just as many people in Hong Kong escaped from mainland China decades ago in search of a better life in Hong Kong, creating over the past 50 years a city that is wealthy, and no longer of the developing world but of the developed world, so, too, the people in Chungking Mansions. Families in India, Pakistan and Africa have often pooled their money to send a family member overseas to Chungking Mansions to work in a phone stall or a guesthouse, or to buy goods to carry home to make a profit and begin the arduous climb towards affluence. The Hongkongers of 40 years ago and these South Asians and Africans today share the same dream: that of becoming middle class.
When I have travelled to Kathmandu, Calcutta and Kampala, and mentioned Hong Kong, the response I have heard is, “Chungking Mansions!” The building serves as a beacon of hope through much of the developing world. I estimate, based on my surreptitious surveys of phone stalls in Chungking Mansions and their sales, that 20 per cent of mobile phones now used in sub-Saharan Africa have passed through the building. Chungking Mansions is a major global hub of what I term “low-end globalisation”, globalisation involving not transnational corporations with their billion-dollar budgets and batteries of lawyers, but that of African traders returning to their homelands clutching luggage filled with a few hundred phones, of South Asian temporary workers bringing home to their family a few thousand dollars of needed money and extraordinary tales, of asylum seekers wondering when, if ever, they can go home, and of travellers from across the globe closely counting their pennies and staying in the one place in Hong Kong that they can afford. I have counted, from guesthouse logs, 129 different nationalities in Chungking Mansions; in terms of cross-cultural interactions, Chungking Mansions is, I conjecture, the single most globalised building on earth. It is a place in which globalisation is largely peaceful. As a Pakistani said to me about Indians: “I do not like them. But I am here to make money, as they are here to make money. We cannot afford to fight.” Yes, there are counterfeit goods for sale; yes, there are illegal workers; but, all in all, the building is a paragon of bourgeois capitalism.
Hong Kong people should be proud, rather than afraid, of this building. Fortunately, this is already happening, to a degree. I recently saw Hong Kong secondary school teachers taking their young students there to ask denizens of Chungking Mansions such questions as “Where are you from?”, “What do you eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner in your country?” And I have observed non-governmental organisations taking Hong Kong Chinese on tours of the building and sharing meals with African and South Asian traders and asylum seekers. Hong Kong people may be gradually coming to understand the value of Chungking Mansions, as a place where the world’s ethnicities and nationalities can work together peacefully to try to make a better life for themselves. Chungking Mansions represents a site where globalisation really works. In a world full of bloody ethnic and religious struggles, the rest of us have much we can learn from it.
[Gordon Mathews is an anthropologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His book Ghetto at the Center of the World, now available in Hong Kong bookstores, discusses Chungking Mansions in a global perspective]
AHRC video on torture in South East Asia
Aug 15th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
Six months homeless in Hong Kong
Aug 14th, 2011 | Advocacy | Comment
August 2011 marks a milestone for Vision First. Considering the hardship refugees face in Hong Kong, struggling for housing is the *number one* difficulty, one which sadly is worsening due to a host of factors. Finding an affordable home is the greatest challenge for any renting family, so it’s easy to imagine the hurdles faced by destitute refugees, without jobs and deposit money. With the government clamping down on illegal structures, roof-top dwellings and unauthorized farmland huts, a difficult situation is becoming a terrible one. Homelessness will spread rapidly among those least able to cope.
When planning our Refugee Shelter, we envisioned a safe haven for new arrivals, for asylum-seekers who’d run out of cash for guesthouses and didn’t have friends do welcome. New arrivals were the target users, but instead we uncovered homelessness among long-time refugees. There’s one who arrived in 2005 and suddenly found himself evicted into the street by a hysterical landlord demanding a sudden 50% rent increase. There’s a member who’s Tokwawan home burnt down. The fire didn’t start in his room, but in the meter box and it was a miracle nobody died. Made homeless overnight, all he owned was reduced to ashes, but for the clothes he was wearing. Misfortune often targets those least prepared to bear another blow. This morning we heard about a Pakistani family of five who is being evicted from their rooftop hut in Mataukok and are desperate for assistance. Sadly our shelter is for men only so another solution is needed. As we ponder these precarious circumstances, please read this email a member sent last week, sharing the miserable experience he had being SIX MONTH HOMELESS in Hong Kong:
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I think what Vision First is doing with the shelter is fantastic – congratulations! If only there was such a safe place when I arrived in Hong Kong and had to live in the streets and on the beach for six months. I arrived in June 2007 and rented a guestroom in Chung King Mansion with the little money I had left. I only had enough for three days, so I went to the UNHCR and told them my story. They asked me where I slept and I said at the Star Ferry. I asked for assistance and they replied, “Go back to Star Ferry!” I was shocked, I couldn’t believed what they said to me. I asked the registration officer to introduce me to some Congolese people and they said they didn’t know any. But in fact there are many registered there!
Sleeping outside I got sick and was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for six nights. Although in pain I was relieved I didn’t have to struggle for a bed. When I was discharged, a kind social worker sent me to a homeless shelter in Samshuipo where I stayed for one week; no need to pay there. They gave me food, I showered and felt safe for the first time. Later I informed UNHCR where I was sleeping and they told me to go back to Star Ferry as I didn’t have ID. They even called the shelter to say I couldn’t stay there any more. The UNHCR had me thrown back into the streets! From that day I spent FOUR MONTHS sleeping under the arches of the Cultural Centre and met many other refugees suffering the same fate. The most distressing part was finding food to eat and especially at night we were hungry as ISS doesn’t support those without homes. This was worse than in Congo: for four months I didn’t eat dinner and had to beg to eat.
Eventually I heard about Crossroads where I could volunteer and eat and this took me away from TST where there are a lot of police and immigration checks. Because my visa had expired I was afraid of staying in Kowloon. I was too afraid of being tortured by the police if I surrendered. That’s when I discovered the Gold Coast Beach. I left my suitcase at a shop in Chung King and only carried a small bag with the stuff I needed on the beach. I slept under a walkway for TWO MONTHS hiding from everyone. In the morning I went to Crossroads and nobody knew I had slept outside. I was so ashamed I didn’t even tell friends at the Jesus is Lord Church because I didn’t want to scare people. Actually, one day the pastor noticed I was suffering. We talked, I told him and he advised me to write a letter to the church explaining my suffering. After I wrote, nothing happened. That was what I feared: to ask for help and then get nothing, which was even more embarrassing than asking. I was very disappointed and after waiting for an answer for ten months, I stopped going there – this is something I’ve never told anyone and I’m glad to share it with you. I was in desperate need and they just ignored me!
Nights on the beach were tough. It was winter, November and December so it became dark early and it was cold. After 5pm I went to the beach. I waited till 6pm when everyone went home. I ate bread I saved from lunch. My shelter was under a walkway reaching from the road to the sand. I covered myself as best I could with material I found around there, stuff I hid under stones at dawn. When I lay down I could see the beach. Even the sea can surprise you, at night the waved could suddenly rise in a storm all the way up to my sleeping space. I was protected from the rain, but exposed to the wind. Often I couldn’t sleep because I wasn’t used to it: sleeping outside, worrying too much, no news from UNHCR, no news from home. I didn’t know this life before. I worried the whole night, constantly felt abandoned and lonely. I cried a lot.
In the morning the beach cleaners knew I was there, but didn’t make a fuss about it. Maybe they saw us, maybe they couldn’t do anything about it. I was there with another Ghanaian guy who slept there before me. Also another Nigerian guy join for a few weeks, but he gave up his case and went back home. We left the walkway before 7am to wash at the nearby public toilet. The water was cold and made my body ache as I wasn’t used to sleeping on the cold sand that chilled my bones. The beach was safe, but very lonely. It was an experience I will never forget as I didn’t expect to suffer like this in a modern city. It’s my wish that with your Refugee Shelter others will be spared my ordeal. May God bless you and support you with what you are doing. Thank you.
Ferdinand, 28 Congo
