The newly appointed Writer in Residence at the Mitchell Library working with refugees and asylum seekers looks forward to reaching undiscovered writers
As a newly appointed, Writer in Residence for Asylum Seekers and Refugees for Glasgow City Council, I find myself plunged into a strange new world but I am lucky. I am surrounded by the familiarity of a city I have grown up in. I have lived and worked in Glasgow for most of my life. I knew and used the Mitchell Library as a student but now I find myself working in this amazing building. It feels like a cruise liner, grand and imposing, slightly adrift from the rest of city life. It is like being on board a ship of dreams.
For Asylum Seekers and Refugees arriving in Glasgow, this city must be feel a cold, daunting and hostile place. I cannot imagine what it must be like to leave behind loved ones, home, career - all the things that define you and give you a sense of your place in the world. To begin again and make this city feel like ‘home’ is a challenge which needs our active support and, as Scotland’s population continues to decline, it is also the key to our future prosperity.
Asylum Seekers and Refugees as a group are often written about in the press, often used as a political football but rarely do we get to hear the voices of the individuals. There seems little space for their stories, their life experience and a chance to understand, from their perspective, what life is really like here. This is a hugely diverse community which needs the chance to communicate. Only through knowledge and integration will we be able to tackle the ignorance and fear which is prevalent among many people who view this new generation of Glaswegians as a threat rather than an asset.
My role is to initiate projects, support and encourage all forms of writing, drama and film and, as this post is in conjunction with the Scottish Arts council, ‘Partners Project,’ I am keen to collaborate across all Art Forms. This is already happening through working in partnership with Artists In Exile, Glasgow and I hope this is the first of many collaborations with organisations who are doing fantastic and innovative work city wide.
There is a sense of segregation and separation as the Asylum and indigenous communities seem operate on parallel tracks, co- existing without knowing each other or interacting. Through organising events in the community for Refugee Week and Black History month, I hope to get a cross section of the community involved, integrating through entertainment and drama.
I look forward to working with Scottish PEN and collaborating on future events.
December 2006
Dawn Raids and Drama Workshops
An update from Aileen Ritchie, Writer in Residence based at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library, where she works with refugee and asylum seeker group.
It is twelve months since I started as a Writer in Residence at Glasgow City Council . It has been a really fascinating year and the time has flown by. It has been the best of times and the worst of times. The best part of this job has to be the inspirational people I have encountered. These are people who try and support the Asylum and Refugee Community in any way they can. Many of them are themselves Asylum Seekers and Refugees but also I have met many ordinary Glaswegians from teenagers to pensioners who are getting up at five in the morning to be part of the early morning vigil against dawn raids. They are neighbours, friends, teachers and school pals who share the fear that their friends will be removed in the darkness before the dawn. All hope of justice and fair treatment seems to be destroyed by the act of a dawn raid.
The atmosphere that the threat of dawn raids has on a community becomes all pervasive. It puts everyone under enormous pressure and has a destructive effect on the ability of people to have a positive outlook about their future. One of the most depressing workshops I was involved in was at a school where the pupils were designing a website which offered both practical legal advice and their own real life experiences of detention and deportation. As part of the workshop process, Save the Children had organised a lawyer to come and answer questions. The classroom was packed and the speaker was remarkably candid in what he said. The young people were only too aware that being tough on Asylum Seekers and Refugees was a vote winner for any government and that they are used by the press as a political football. What they were seeking in the midst of this was some sense of fairness and justice. But there was little comfort as the lawyer explained the Immigration ‘numbers game’ and how the numbers of deportations were set to continue and rise. He was right.
Sometimes doing workshops can seem pointless when people are in the midst of a much more immediate crisis about their future. However, sometimes it can be an opportunity to completely escape and recall happier memories of homes that were places of beauty before they became war zones. Others take the opportunity to write directly about they are experiencing now. From a series of drama workshops at Kingsway Court in Scotstoun, a group of young Asylum Seekers and Refugees devised a short play called ‘The Circle’ which is a remarkably upbeat comedy about Asylum Seekers arriving in Glasgow. It has a tragic twist which packs an emotional punch and the play has been much in demand and we have toured it to a variety of locations.
December 2006