Baobab women’s advocacy team had its first online training on campaigning and advocacy on Sep 16, 2020 which was organized in connection with the Refugee Women’s Connect team based in Liverpool. The refugee Women’s connect is a registered charity organization working with service users, policy makers and the wider sectors to support and facilitate refugee women’s access social justice.
This training was organized with the vision to start a movement of refugee women who are in and have been through the asylum system leading policy and advocacy in their own right. The training will be looking at Campaigning, telling once story, self-care in activism and intersectional feminism and it will be held for 6 weeks as it has started with its first online session this week.
The training involved 12 trainees from Baobab women’s Project that came from different countries and background. The participants are expected to be working as an advocate for the project as they finish the 6 weeks long training. On its first online session the training covered introduction to advocacy and companioning followed by experience sharing by Refugee Women’s Connect team.
It also deliberated on the current key factors affecting asylum seekers and in what way these problems can be addressed if the system were to be changed. The participants mentioned and discussed that asylum seekers are facing a lot problem now a days as their cases to be seen by the case workers takes longer time than expected.
To mention some of the points that were raised by the trainees as a problem for asylum seekers are not being allowed to work and impotent to attained high-level schools as they wait years for a decision to be made for them affecting their emotion and mental stability. Also, the UK government’s allowance for people seeking asylum is just £5.39 per day, which means people are often forced to make impossible decision between food, phone credits or other essentials.
It also talked on possible solution if the system were to be changed that the UK government enables the asylum seekers to work and enter high level schools as it would benefit them as well as the country & creating awareness on what opportunities are out there and assisting them to take part in these activities while they are on the waiting list.