Leading Scots mark Scotland’s Year of Homecoming with a twist,
by paying HOME visits to inspiring refugees

Four leading Scots – a politician, an artist and writer, a musician, and a radio DJ and presenter – will today take part in a series of home visits to refugees and asylum seekers across Glasgow to swap stories of ‘home’ and mark the launch of the Refugee Week Scotland 09 programme.

Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, and Emma Pollock, musician and former member of critically acclaimed band the Delgados, are amongst high-profile Scots involved in the visits, which aim to highlight the contribution made to Scottish society by refugees and asylum seekers from war-torn countries across the world.

John Byrne, artist and writer, whose work includes the iconic Slab Boys trilogy, is also taking part in the awareness raising project, concerned with the issues refugees and asylum seekers face when making a new life in Scotland. Heather Suttie, the XFM radio DJ and presenter is also behind the call to celebrate Scotland’s cultural diversity.

Each high profile Scot will visit a refugee host at the place they consider to be home, where they will share experiences and discuss what home means to them.

Hosts include Amal Azzudin, the founder member of the Glasgow Girls, the campaigning group which won Scottish Campaign of the Year Award in 2005, and Fuad Warsame, who arrived in Scotland from Somalia as an unaccompanied minor and has recently won the Trades House of Glasgow Modern Apprentice of the Year award.  

Matta Matabaro, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who founded leading community organisation Africa Umoja Scotland, and journalist Myriam Abedi, also from the DRC.

Refugee Week Scotland 09 is themed around Home as a partner event of the Year of Homecoming, a celebration marking the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth. The event, co-ordinated by the Scottish Refugee Council, aims to remind people to think not only of Scots who have made new homes in countries across the world, but also of those forced to flee conflict and persecution in their country of origin and seek a new home in Scotland.

John Wilkes, Chief Executive of Scottish Refugee Council, which co-ordinates Refugee Week Scotland, said: “In this Year of Homecoming we are all reminded what it is to feel at home in our country, and of the generations of people who have come and gone from Scotland’s shores. With Refugee Week Scotland 2009 we want to remind Scots of the journeys refugees have taken to get here; fleeing their previous homes in fear of persecution and danger, and trying to build a new life and safe home here in Scotland.

“We know that those seeking sanctuary in our country have a lot to contend with; recent stories around destitution and detention remind us of this. However, we hear time and time again from refugees we work with that the people of Scotland have provided welcome, assistance and friendship at a highly traumatic time of their lives.

“We’re restating the importance of a place you can call home. We would urge Scots to continue to welcome those who have sought sanctuary in our nation.”

Ends

Notes to editors

1. Refugee Week Scotland, which includes over 100 programmed events, runs from June 15-21 and programmes will be available across Scotland from May 28. The annual festival is co-ordinated by the Scottish Refugee Council. See www.refugeeweek.org.uk/scotland for more details.

2. A full schedule of all the Home Visits along with images and transcripts of interviews from all the refugee and asylum seeker participants is available. Please call Karin Goodwin/Clare Harris, Media Officers, Scottish Refugee Council on 0141 223 7927/ 07734 030 763

3. HOME Visits is a Homecoming Scotland partner event and is funded by the Big Lottery.

4. Recent research shows that many Scots still have negative perceptions of refugee and asylum seekers and a limited understanding of why they have settled in Scotland and the difficulties they face on arrival.

Last year the Independent Asylum Commission Confirmed existing evidence that there was a ‘grave misunderstanding’ in the public mind about the term ‘asylum’ and a need to separate asylum issues from those of economic migration in order that people begin to associate asylum seekers more than they currently do with the act of fleeing persecution.

A 2006 report from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR, Lewis), pointed to a greater ‘tolerance’ towards asylum seekers in Scotland than in England and Wales, however, there remained a great deal of hostility to asylum seekers, particularly in Glasgow, where the vast majority of Scottish asylum seekers live.