Two telephone self-help groups have been launched for older Ethiopian refugees living in London. Funded by the Childwick Trust, the project is run by the UK’s only telephone conferencing charity, Community Network, and allows eight people in each group to regularly link up and talk about adjusting to life in the UK and how to overcome any problems that they may encounter. To ensure the groups run effectively, Community Network has trained one member from each group to act as group facilitator.
“Many refugees arrive in the UK having escaped from persecution, detention, torture and sexual violence in their homeland, only to find their new lives blighted by feelings of alienation and social exclusion,” says Belay Gessesse, Community Network’s Project Officer. “This can be caused by cultural, social and religious differences in addition to the language barrier. The Government’s policy of dispersal – relocating refugees to different parts of the UK, often to locations where there are no other people from their ethnic group – serves only to exacerbate the feelings of isolation.”
To explore ways of tackling this problem Community Network hosted a consultative workshop In September 2009, which was attended by representatives from the refugee community and other agencies. The telephone project is the first initiative to have resulted from the discussions.
Telephone self-help groups are also planned for members of the Somali and Eritrean communities where the groups will have the option of holding discussions in their own language. Furthermore, the NAZ Project, the charity supporting refugees living with HIV/Aids, and Praxis, the organisation working with displaced people, are looking at the possibility of establishing telephone self-help groups for their vulnerable clients.
Community Network is also working with the Helen Bamber Foundation on a joint project to provide help for refugees who have been victims of torture and now suffer from anxiety and depression. The Foundation’s highly trained team of counsellors will deliver professional support while Community Network will facilitate the communication between the victims of torture and the counsellors.
