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THERE'S A
There can’t be many drop-in centres which attract quite so much attention from the press as the Wednesday afternoon event in the hall of Dover URC. Journalists from as far afield as a Japanese radio station and an American talk TV have made the journey. On the afternoon of Reform’s visit it was a German TV station. Minister Norman Setchell regularly finds messages on his answer phone from the world’s media. The reason is not so much the unusual nature of the activities but rather the fact that families who crowd into the building are part of Dover’s community of asylum-seekers.
Norman Setchell, the minister at Dover URC, first came into contact with asylum-seekers during the four years he spent with the British International Sailors Society in Antwerp. During his last two years there he became involved with Algerians and other nationalities who were beginning to settle in Belgium, helping them with housing and other problems. When he decided to return to England he looked for a pastorate which would enable him to maintain contact with a local port – and a vacant Dover was obvious candidate. He little suspected when he took the post that within a matter of weeks the Kosovan crisis would flare up and refugees from the troubled province would begin to arrive. ‘At first,’ he says, ‘the public reaction was very sympathetic but after about two months we had the first National Front march. The reaction that I saw from some newspapers, members the public and even some church people simply mortified me. So I said to the congregation here “we simply have to use these premises to help”.’
The project began by offering English lessons in co-operation with the local authority, mainly to Kurdish and Afghan families. Before long, however, the town began to see the first Roma people from Slovakia and the Czech Republic. As public reaction became more hostile it was decided that what was needed was a place where people could find a welcome and an opportunity to seek advice, so the current Wednesday drop-in format was born.
A typical Wednesday afternoon up sees the hall heaving with families and children. The youngest clearly relish the opportunity to play and to engage in a variety of artistic endeavours from play-dough to painting. While the children play, adults take the opportunity to exchange experiences over a cup of tea or coffee; others find advice over the complex forms with which the system confronts them. In this they have often been helped by a succession of volunteer students from the Czech Republic. Some visitors come in the hope of finding a guarantor to put money down for accommodation. As the afternoon wears on more children arrive, for one of the project’s achievements is that it has managed, by dint of persuasion and gathering second-hand school uniforms, to obtain places at local schools for the children of many asylum-seekers.
The sessions are staffed by a varied group of helpers, most – though not all – from local churches. On this particular Wednesday afternoon there is a Catholic nun, a Methodist, a Baptist, a member of the local Light House Church and an Anglican priest, to name but a few. Though the project does not lack volunteers, Norman is disappointed at the lack of official response from local churches in general. In the early days many fellowships were reluctant to open their premises because of fear of the public reaction. In fact, the project has attracted very little hostility, though Norman (with his slightly military bearing and upper-crust accent) recalls with amusement a letter he received which concluded that his sympathy for asylum seekers must mean that he was not English himself.
In recent weeks, he feels, some of the hostility appears to have abated. Part of the reason seems to be a toning down of language on the part of the local press. One paper in particular which regularly referred to asylum-seekers as ‘scum’ has recently appointed a new editor. The local press are also responding to pressure from the police, who have criticised the kind of language used. Another factor in easing tensions is the recent positive attitude of the local authority, which has assured residents that the problem is under control and that its expenditure is being met by national government. Even so, Norman knows that journalists who conduct interviews in the street are still likely to find negative attitudes. ‘Often the hostility is mixed with misinformation. Some people have accused asylum-seekers of being responsible for bootlegging of alcohol and cigarettes, which seems a bit difficult since they don’t have passports and so wouldn’t dare to leave.’ Some have blamed shoplifting on them, despite the fact that statistics show that it isn’t primarily an asylum seeker problem. He is often irritated by the double-standards applied to the newcomers. If the child of an asylum seeker is seen to spit in the street, it becomes a complaint against the whole community. The fact that many local children do the same goes without comment. As for the complaints that groups of young asylum-seekers gather in the streets, he wonders what anyone expects when young people are left with nothing to do all day – or why people who make the complaint turn a blind eye to the fact that up and down the country British youth do exactly the same thing.
If all this sounds as if Norman and others who give their time look at Dover’s new residents through rosy-coloured spectacles, nothing could be further from the truth. He has had his share of disappointments, as when the hall was recently left in a mess after a social event, or furniture has been damaged through careless use. He is not even sure that many of the families are clear that help is being offered voluntarily, rather than as part of some bureaucratic scheme paid for by the authorities. He knows that while some families have been model neighbours, others have antagonised the local community. But he has also tasted the hospitality of people who have little or nothing to spare and listened to the stories of those who seek desperately not to be a burden on the state or individuals.
The first interest of the team on Wednesday afternoons is not whether asylum-seekers’ claims are justified, though in many cases Norman Setchell has seen the physical evidence of torture. Among the group most singled out for accusations of bogus asylum seeking, the Roma people, he has heard sufficient stories of their treatment at the hands of racist skinheads in Slovakia and the Czech Republic to believe that, for many, their lives had been made a living hell. He simply believes that the project’s task is to provide a welcome, leaving the judgment on the genuineness of asylum claims to others.
Norman is very grateful for the flexibility his Church gives him to do the work and he enjoys the company of the team who make the Wednesday afternoons so welcoming. He wishes they could do more but it is difficult to find the resources unless others commit themselves to the task. Unless and until that happens he is content that he and his fellow workers are not alone, for as he says: ‘I think Christ is here doing this.’
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