Moving on

Our second refugee family has decided to relocate to Swansea where they hope they will find more  compatriots and more opportunities for work and learning. We are sorry to see them go but they are free to do so although it means they won't have the benefit of our support group. There are a number of drop-in centres for asylum seekers and refugees in Swansea however so they won't be without help.

While we were with them today their parents showed us live news reports of fighting taking place in Syria where their extended families (parents, siblings, nephews, nieces) are living in tents. "They have to keep fires going in the tent for warmth but with small children running around it is so dangerous'" they explained. Quite apart from the shells and gunfire.

A few days ago at the BAFTA awards the low-budget film For Sama won the best documentary award.  It's the personal story of a young Syrian film maker, Waad al-Kateab, her husband  Hamza, an emergency room doctor, and their baby daughter, Sama, as they live, work and try to be a family in the grimmest conditions imaginable. "It's all linked around Sama. Sama not just as my daughter, but as all of the children in Syria,"  she said.


You can watch the moment of the BAFTA award here. (Be warned, it's very moving) and if you have a chance to see the film please do.


These three children represent a fortunate tiny minority of refugees who are neither in the war zone  nor in the grossly overcrowded refugee camps in Greece and elsewhere. The UK could be taking so many more families (and unaccompanied minors*). Community sponsorship has burgeoned since we in Fishguard first got involved four years ago but still the numbers are very low and the bar for exclusion is set very high.

Here they are almost a year ago.


*See here