Migrant Action

Empowerment Advocacy Justice

From the Director’s Desk: Christmas Message

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It’s hard to believe that Christmas 2017 is just 3 days away!

Amidst the excitement, pressures, commitment and the temptation to over indulge as we engage in celebration with loved ones, it is also a time to reflect on the year that was for Migrant Action. Two words characterise 2017 for our organisation, Challenge and Promise

Increasingly, we have witnessed more migrants presenting in vulnerable circumstances with unresolved issues and complex needs. Migrants continue to experience destitution, limited access to basic information and guidance as well as restricted access to legal advice, advocacy, healthcare and welfare. Unemployment, limited knowledge and access to services and understanding of complex UK systems constitute key barriers to integration faced by migrants. Many vulnerable migrants continue to live a fringe existence susceptible to various forms of exploitation and degradation. These and more are largely the direct effects of deliberate policy making to create a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants. With limited capacity, Migrant Action is committed to working and supporting migrants to navigate and resolve these challenges.

Amidst the challenges, 2017 has been a year of great Promise thanks to our amazing volunteers including our steering committee, supporters, funders, partners and collaborators. In solidarity with migrants, they have contributed immensely in various ways to ensure that Migrant Action is stable and continues to offer safe space and reliable pathway for assisting vulnerable migrants and those who do not fit into neat migration categories. Because of your help, we are ending 2017 much stronger as an organisation than in 2016, thank you!

On the foundations of such Promise, we look to 2018 with entrenched hope and resolve to continue to challenge the ‘hostile environment’ whilst working to empower and support vulnerable migrants. We hope that as you reflect on 2017 you would consider supporting Migrant Action’s work in whatever way yon can. And together in solidarity, together we can change the migration story and make it a positive experience for all in our great city of Leeds.

Merry Christmas! Best wishes for the season and for 2018.

Fidelis Chebe
Director
Migrant Action

Happy New Year from Migrant Action

Dear friends of Migrant Action,

In a few hours, we will be saying ‘good-bye’ to 2021 and ‘welcome’ to 2022. Thank you for your solidarity and support helping to strengthen Migrant Action’s advocacy and pursuit for migrants’ rights & justice in an increasingly challenging and complex environment.  The essence of our work is even more relevant now!

Context

BREXIT, the ‘New immigration bill which reinforces the ‘hostile environment’ policy targeting migrants, the Climate crisis, Covid-19, Systemic racism, negative press narratives fuelling anti-migrant sentiments by sections of the media, protracted conflicts, political violence, human rights violations, economic exploitation, and political marginalisation of the global south.   

These developments constitute a disturbing environment for migrant’s rights & justice.  Firstly, it engineers and sustains vulnerability and the precarious conditions that trigger more mobility of migrants across and within countries.   Secondly, it entrenches and exacerbates an infrastructure that undermine migrants’ capacity to access justice, deepen inequality, racial & social injustice and routinely negate migrant rights and dignity.  In essence, such an environment poses an existential threat to the dignity and humanity of migrants.

Our Response

Migrant Action is adapting and responding to this changing and complex context. We have expanded provision and adapted service delivery model to proactively support vulnerable migrants during the pandemic and beyond. We enhanced our delivery of crisis interventions to prevent homelessness & destitution, increased access to immigration advice for people with insecure immigration, increased integration support for new migrants, assisted more EU migrants to regularise their immigration status in the UK after Brexit.   Our advocacy work continues to promote equity of rights and justice for migrants. Essentially, Migrant Action continues to a lifeline and safety net for vulnerable migrants in this challenging environment.

Migrant Action has also strengthened its capacity and resilience in pursuit of transformational social change. The current context demands more urgency to challenge anti-migrant sentiments and policies, tackle structural inequalities, climate change, systemic racism, and social injustice. To this vein, our strategic advocacy through ‘Strengthening Hands’ partnerships to grow migrant ‘voice’, as well as our collaborative research, capacity building and campaign-based activities have been impactful.

Looking to the future

Migrant Action anticipates operating in an even more challenging context as it grapples with the issues undermining rights and justice. However, we have emerged from 2020/21 with more capacity and resilience to respond to present and future challenges working as a team with staff, volunteers, trustees, partners, funders and of course, those we serve- migrants.  Therefore, we look forward to 2022 with greater hope and fierceness commitment to rights and justice for migrants, a fair and humane immigration system and for a more equal, just, and peaceful society in which everyone including migrants can realize their full potential.

Dear friends, your solidarity remains invaluable and integral to our success, even more so, now!

Thank you and Happy New Year!

Fidelis Chebe

Director