Interview with Leicester City of Sanctuary Chairperson

By Ambrose Musiyiwa

Pam Inder has been Chair of Leicester City of Sanctuary since August 2011. Before that, she had been volunteering with City of Sanctuary for a couple of years, mostly with the Voucher Exchange Scheme and then, later, as Volunteer Coordinator in which role she interviewed new volunteers and found them roles within the organisation.

In her working life, she was a museum curator for over 20 years and then a university lecturer before retiring in 2006.

Citizens’ Eye spoke to her about Leicester City of Sanctuary and the drop-in centre the organisation launched in May of this year:

CE: What is Leicester City of Sanctuary?

PI: ‘City of Sanctuary’ is a national organisation with 17 branches (I think … it keeps growing) in cities around the UK.

Our stated aim is to create a culture of welcome for asylum seekers and refugees in our communities. Different cities interpret that aim in different ways, depending on local circumstances and needs.

CE: What motivated you to start the drop-in centre?

PI: The idea behind the drop-in centre is so that we can provide a pleasant environment for asylum seekers and refugees to meet not only each other but also members of the host community.

We plan to run various free courses. An art class, a beginners’ computer course and English classes are already running.

We also hope to set up various projects. Currently we have people knitting squares to make into blankets. We have plans to create a City of Sanctuary quilt and to provide activities for people that will benefit the community as a whole.

We will provide free internet access and have sewing machines that can be used on site as well as games, magazines, jigsaws etc for people who just want to sit and relax.

Mothers are welcome to bring their children and we have lots of toys for them to play with.

We hope to have various other organisations providing activities on site. For example, next week, the cosmetic firm, Lush will be offering free pampering sessions.

In time we also hope to be able to provide free lunches. At present we do not have the facilities to do so.

We hope the centre will enable us to meet more of Leicester’s asylum seekers and learn from them what additional services they would like us to provide.

We are also actively seeking funds to enable us to provide bus fares for people visiting the centre because the cost of getting in to the city centre is a real problem for asylum seekers.

CE: When did the drop-in centre start operating?

PI: We opened at the beginning of May.

We are open from 1-4pm on Thursdays, in the Donaldson Centre which is part of St Martin’s House and next door to the Cathedral on Peacock Lane (an extension of St Martin’s Lane). Our English classes run in the same place on Tuesday evenings 6-7pm and a FANs (Friends and Neighbours) conversation circle to help people improve their English runs on Wednesdays 10.30-11.30am, again in the same place.

CE: In setting up the service, what problems did you encounter?

 PI: Problems – lots of them!

We set up a drop-in centre in the old Barclay’s Bank building on the corner of Town Hall Square in February and were evicted by the owners a month later. This left us with a lot of furniture and equipment to store/dispose of.

The tenancy at St Martin’s House is obviously much more secure and we are enormously grateful to Canon Pete Hobson, the Director, for making the space available to us.

Our biggest problem now is letting people know what we have to offer and getting them to come along – though we do realise this will take time. We know there are a lot of asylum seekers out there who feel lonely and isolated – they are the people we want to reach.

We would also welcome people who have had their claims turned down and are living rough or sofa surfing.

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