On Sunday 29 September, SPARK organised a partnership event with Caritas Catholic Care. To celebrate the World Day for Migrants and Refugees’ We heard the stories of some of the people who have been helped to re-settle in the Yorkshire area with help from Caritas Catholic Care. They are an official Government partner for the Syrian Re-settlement scheme, which, in 2015, guaranteed resettlement for 20,000 Syrian refugees.
Sue Parsons from Caritas Catholic Care took a few minutes to explain how the Resettlement Scheme works. It involves both direct help from Caritas Catholic Care and the building of a community of people around those being resettled.
We then heard directly from some of those who had been resettled in Pateley Bridge and in Ripon. Their route to the UK involved travelling out of Syria to Jordan prior to getting to the UK. However, it took a long time to sort out papers: it was much more arduous than just getting into Jordan and hopping on a UK-bound plane. They did not speak of the hardships they had to endure along the way – one merely described his time in Jordan as ‘difficult’. However, it had been deliberately left to the refugees themselves to decide what they wanted to share.
They were all clearly delighted to now have a more settled existence. A couple from Pateley Bridge (Huda & Mohamed) are starting up a catering business serving Syrian food (called ‘Road to Damascus’). They are already supplying one of the cafes in Pateley Bridge and we became another of their early customers. We asked for some typical Syrian food that could be eaten without additional cooking or heating. They provided a feast!
The food provided a good accompaniment to people chatting more informally and asking questions to find out more both from Sue Parsons and from the refugees themselves.