In this blog, our volunteer Bella shares about her role and why she was motivated to run 10km to raise funds for essential our work welcoming migrants and refugees.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with Migrants Organise?
My name is Bella and I was born and raised in London. I got involved with Migrants Organise because I had become so disillusioned with the world and the state of the country.
I started off as an actor, but recently re-trained and I studied Anthropology at University. It was an amazing, decolonial anthropology course that changed the way I saw and understood the world. Interrogating racism, capitalism, the climate emergency, patriarchy and other systems of oppressions on a local and global level was both incredible and horrifying.
As a person with a lot of privilege, I wanted to use it to better the world around me. I could no longer sit by and pretend that everything was normal. A friend of mine knew of Migrants Organise and recommended it to me and by chance you were looking for volunteers at that exact time!
What has your role involved with Migrants Organise?
As a volunteer with Migrants Organise once a week, I work in the Community Programme as a caseworker and in the asylum hotels. I give advice and help with casework in healthcare, destitution, welfare benefits, housing and asylum.
I also was supported to sit my Immigration Advice Authority (IAA – formerly OISC) level 1 so I am a legally trained immigration adviser thanks to Migrants Organise!
The most rewarding aspect of the work has been meeting so many incredible people and hearing their stories, feeling their warmth and strength and being allowed to share in their lives. I feel I have made many friends and joined the most incredible community at Migrants Organise.
And also, just doing really small (and big) things that make someone’s life a little bit better or slightly easier. This country can be so unhospitable and cruel, and is incredibly complicated even for someone who’s been here forever – so using my time and knowledge is the least I can do honestly.
I would say that the challenging aspects come from governmental setbacks. Knowing that people who really need help and deserve to live safe, dignified lives are being denied access on a daily basis can be disheartening and incredibly difficult.
It’s also been hard for me on a personal level because I am a bit of a perfectionist and I never want to get anything wrong or give someone unhelpful advice as I know how important it can be. But being supported by the amazing team at Migrants Organise has meant that I always had someone to ask for help.
You recently ran the London Vitality 10,000 race and raised over £400 for Migrants Organise. What motivated you to do that?
Having people donate to a cause that means so much to me, was so great.
I felt the support of my friends and family when I was running through central London and took every step for the refugees and migrants that I work with. I am proud to have run it for them.
I am so happy to have raised £409 that will go straight to the organisation and the people that need it most. It honestly meant the world to me – and genuinely spurred me on when I was doing the race!
Solidarity is one of our core values at Migrants Organise. What does solidarity mean to you?
To me, solidarity is showing up, speaking up and staying soft. Systems of oppression are designed to make us hard and tries to get us to turn away and ignore our natural instinct to care for one another and ourselves.
Solidarity is listening, learning, feeling whatever emotions come up, doing the work and then resting when needed. Solidarity is something you live with and nurture and grow in.
It is a lifelong fight for justice for all – human rights are non-negotiable and every single human deserves freedom, safety, autonomy, dignity and peace. We can all do SO much to show up for migrants and refugees, regardless of financial or physical capacity.
We can all do at least one of these things. There are demonstrations, marches and meetings happening all over London every single week, there are ongoing campaigns for funds and financial support to individuals and organisations just like Migrants Organise that make such a difference, there’s volunteering options in so many spaces.
Eeveryone should be reading books and learning about systems of oppression, historical events and current discourses that have led us to this present moment – any radical bookshop usually has reading lists and collections of incredible writers that speak to these things, like Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Franz Fanon, Akala and so many more!
Another thing we can all be doing is challenging negative stereotypes and assumptions about refugees – and harnessing our critical thinking skills!!! We should be questioning everything we see in the media as they often have political agendas.
Showing up for those in your community, supporting local services and refusing to accept the discrimination and hatred that the current government are churning out.
And finally, kindness goes such a long way, just because someone might look, sound or act differently than you, it doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate small acts of kindness, a ‘hello’, an offer of a seat or simply a smile.
I firmly believe that small acts can change even the biggest of systems, and Maya Angelou said that “no one of us can be free until all of us are free” so we must keep fighting, together, until then.
Migrants Organise is a platform for migrants, refugees and allies to organise for dignity and justice.
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