NEWS & BLOG

Fred, like so many of our 100+ incredible volunteers, has spent years of his (young) life at our centre being part of our community and supporting people in a mind-boggling number of ways. We have been ridiculously lucky to have him.

In Fred’s first months volunteering with us, during the pandemic when life was unbelievably difficult for asylum-seeking Londoners trying to cope with living in near-destitution and overcrowded budget hotels as well as the threat of Covid, he used his Spanish, Farsi and legal knowledge to support families and our casework team through crisis after crisis, as well as building relationships with our community on trips (including at QPR). With characteristic gentleness, he supported two distressed El Salvadorian children and their isolated mum to cope with the trauma of having suddenly escaped their home country from gang threats, playing football with the kids and building trust with the family.

When the Home Office came to their door one day to try and move them miles away with no warning, he hot-footed it down to their asylum hotel with our Deputy Director to help them understand their rights and prevent their move – key to us being able to continue our work with them as they rebuilt their lives in West London. He translated for them for months afterwards, supporting our casework team to find them a legal aid lawyer, move out of terrible asylum housing, and eventually get refugee status and the golden ticket to long-term safety they had hoped for for so long.

Beyond the unendingly useful skills and talents of Fred and our other volunteers, it is their compassion, rootedness in community and sense of justice we are most proud of and what will make Fred a barrister (in human rights and discrimination no less) that his future clients couldn’t be luckier to have. We would say we will miss him, but people don’t ever actually leave our community so he’ll doubtless be hanging out on our sofa very soon.