Chichester Quakers Host Day Out for Asylum Seekers from Portsmouth

Chichester Quakers hosted a day out for asylum seekers from Portsmouth on Friday 12 April 2019, a response to the obstacles people seeking asylum in the UK face. Seventy visitors travelled to Chichester for a day that included sightseeing, all-age activities and a shared meal.

The event was a joint effort between a local charity, a national company, a cathedral, a football team and a Quaker Meeting. At any given time, the source says, up to 200 asylum seekers are accommodated in Portsmouth while the Home Office reviews their applications. The government does not permit asylum seekers to work but provides basic bedsit accommodation and an allowance of £37 a week. The writer, who chairs the charity Friends Without Borders, said the charity runs a drop-in coffee shop and advice service for asylum seekers in Portsmouth.

Friends Without Borders decided to organise the outing to add some fun and colour to the lives of people the writer describes as very poor and deprived. The project allowed the Chichester Local Quaker Meeting to provide practical, hands-on support. The charity contacted the bus operator Stagecoach, whose service runs past the Portsmouth base to central Chichester, and asked for complimentary tickets. The company provided the 50 tickets requested. When demand exceeded that number, the charity covered the cost of further tickets.

On the day, the visitors and charity volunteers travelled on the complimentary coaches. Quakers and refugees from the Chichester Sanctuary Meeting met the Portsmouth visitors and led a guided tour from the Bishop’s Palace Garden, past the cathedral and through the city centre to the Meeting House, where everyone had lunch. Welcoming the stranger into a shared table, as the group did here, is a plain expression of hospitality (Matthew 25:35).

Around half the visitors were children. After the meal there was face painting and Easter egg hunts, followed by a choice of football in the park, play in Priory Park’s play area, or a visit to Chichester Cathedral, which included a brass-rubbing activity. Some of the men attended Friday prayers at the Swanfield Mosque before an informal football match against Nations United, the Sanctuary in Chichester team. The organisers said they had printed handbills advertising “A Fun Day Out” with nothing to pay, timed the day to coincide with the school holidays, and served vegetarian food to avoid difficulties with sourcing halal options. The Chichester Cathedral Education Department organised the tours and brass rubbing.

The organisers said numbers were a challenge. They had planned for 25 people, and at least 70 attended. Because the day was fine, visitors came and went, so not everyone was in the Meeting House at once. Many Friends helped with catering, and the source says the day went smoothly.

The writer reported that visitors gave a very warm response and that many thanked the organisers, some repeatedly. The trustees of Friends Without Borders, described as a secular charity, were very impressed by the warmth of the Quaker welcome. One elderly Quaker brought flowers to make the tables look nicer, a small courtesy the writer noted was ordinary in private homes but meant a great deal to people whose lives are often confined to bleak bedsits.

The writer said they had not expected such small acts of respect and kindness to matter so much, and that the gratitude of the visitors surprised them. “We hope that others will copy us!” the writer said.

Source: Read the original report