NEWS & BLOG

The Mum-and-Baby group at West London Welcome (WLW) have been meeting every Friday for more than three years. With support from the directors and staff, I started the group in April 2023, when my firstborn daughter was just four months old.

I was a new mother myself, navigating the ups and downs of motherhood. In a big city like London, parents, particularly mothers, often raise their children without the extended village of meaningful relationships and reassuring support. As a mum, it is easy to feel invisible in a society that values profit and productivity over the slow, so-called “unprofitable work” of caring for the very young. Yet this slow work of raising children is what builds and holds society together.

Unlike the asylum-seeking mothers at WLW, I had robust support to lean on: a settled life with my husband, a safe country, and no war or life-threatening conflicts at our backs. Asylum-seeking mothers do not have that. They have been uprooted, far from home, often in full-board accommodation without a proper kitchen of their own, living on the £9.95 a week the system allows, with their futures suspended in the hands of the Home Office. These are just some of the many limitations that restrict the mothers’ and children’s freedom to live and thrive in the world.

With this in mind, we set up a weekly group for mums with children under five. Childcare has been provided by Rahiya, a kind woman whose life’s work has been devoted to caring for children, and I have been supported by Mounia, a WLW staff member who always made us feel seen and loved. I have been coming every Friday with my daughter Mia, and later my second- born, Clara, joined the group.

Each Friday, we mothers have been gathering while our children played. Some weeks, we have organised activities such as singing, cooking and writing. Other weeks, we have been sitting with our tea, listening to each other’s stories. This book of poems emerged from one of those activities, co-created with all the mums and designed by artist Rachel Le Mesurier.

The poems are inspired by the mothers’ experiences, thoughts, and feelings at the time of writing. Poetry has been explored as a means to express what they carry within them and to share a glimpse of it with the world. In that sense, this book sheds light on their inner lives, illustrating unwavering strength, hope, and faith.

Since we started, we have had mums from Sudan, Syria, Morocco, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Namibia, Uganda, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Iran, Somalia and Albania. Our stories and circumstances differed, and our differences were honoured and respected. Together, we have been there for each other in sorrow and joy.

Over the years, members have come and gone as mums and their children (and, for some, their partners too) were assigned new accommodation and moved to a different, more distant location. Our group was transient, but each mother and child who passed through left a lasting mark on the beating heart of West London Welcome. Together, we have created a village that is so needed for both mother and child.

– Eleonora Ramsby Herrera, PhD.

Eleonora is a volunteer and co-organiser of the Mum-and-Baby group at West London Welcome.