Refugee Week: Cait, project support officer, on how we work with refugees locally
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This Refugee Week, Cait our project support officer, tells us more about her work at Caritas and how we support refugees and people seeking asylum and safety…
My name is Cait and I’m project support officer for the social action team, based at the Lalley Centre, Community Pantry, and Allotment.
I joined Caritas in January, after graduating from the University of Birmingham with a Master’s degree in migration studies. I’ve previously volunteered for lots of different refugee research groups and charities. One of the reasons I wanted to join Caritas was because I knew the charity had a history of doing great work with refugee and asylum seeker communities.
Like all of our charity services, the Lalley Centre, Community Pantry and Allotment supports a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds, including many people seeking asylum and people with refugee status.
However, not only do we support refugees and asylum seekers, they support us through their many wonderful contributions to our services.
As part of our Aspire Education project, we welcome around thirty refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants into the centre every week for ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) lessons.
The students inject so much cheer into the centre with their enthusiasm, eagerness to learn, and positive attitude.
These students, along with other asylum seekers and refugees who use the centre, often translate our materials into Farsi, Arabic, and other languages. Many of our wonderful volunteers in the centre, community pantry and allotment are refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, too, who selflessly give up their time and energy to give back to the community and ensure things run smoothly.
The Lalley Centre, Community Pantry and Allotment would not be what it is today without the sustained contributions made by asylum seekers and refugees to our services.
To find out more about our work with people locally and how you can help support refugees and people seeking safety in your community, visit: www.caritassalford.org.uk/refugees
To find out more about our policy and advocacy work and ways you can get involved, visit www.caritassalford.org.uk/about/policy-and-advocacy/