Almost fifty volunteers from across Worcestershire squeezed into the Council Chamber at Malvern Hills District Council on Saturday March 5th to take part in a day’s training in preparation for welcoming the first group of Syrian refugee families. The refugees are expected to arrive in April or May and will be resettled in suitable accommodation across the county. The training day included delegates from refugee support groups from Bromsgrove and Wyre Forest as well as Malvern and Worcester.
Arranged and hosted by ‘Malvern Welcomes Syrian Refugees’, the day was introduced by local organisers Ruth Forecast and Jane Knowles, and there followed a series of short and focused sessions delivered by Karen Argent from The Letterpress Project, a not for profit organization, and Jenny Phillimore (professor of migration and superdiversity at the University of Birmingham). Their aim was to prepare delegates for the task of ensuring a warm welcome and practical assistance to the families once they arrive here. To this end, vivid insights were provided on the terrible conditions in the camps in countries bordering Syria and of the appalling experiences to which the refugees have been subject; to set the scene for discussion of the implications, priorities and challenges involved in providing a supportive resettlement process in Worcestershire.
A key objective of the training day was to prepare the delegates to run further such sessions with community groups around the county. Doing so should help to dispel the many myths and misunderstandings that persist about the Syrian refugees and to build a positive welcoming climate of support in which families can begin to recover from their terrifying traumas, rebuild their shattered lives, re-establish their personal contribution to society and assume some semblance of normality in their daily routines.
Organiser Ruth Forecast said in her summing up on the day,
“it was an absolutely fantastic day which gave everyone so much to think about and helped prepare the volunteers for the vital role that each will be playing in the months ahead, both in befriending the first few families as they arrive in our area and also in engaging with a range of community groups to win their support and involvement in the resettlement process too”.
County Councillor Lucy Hodgson and District Councillor Melanie Baker expressed their thanks and support to the attendees of the training and stated that the role of voluntary groups would be an important element in the success of the resettlement process and they were looking forward to working together.
As the day’s training drew to a close in the late afternoon, the flip chart was enthusiastically filled out by the delegates making pledges to run further training sessions with other groups with which they interact and with additional offers of practical support and other resources to assist the mission.
