Could you live on £5 a day? For many that wouldn’t even cover their daily transportation costs to get to and from their school, university, or place of work each day, let alone the other essentials such as food, clothing, and shelter. Yet that is the budget of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers living in the UK today. This doesn’t even count the thousands who receive no support from the government because their appeals, most often after years of waiting, have been rejected. In short, many asylum seekers in the UK live here in poverty, with their ambiguous immigration status often preventing them from working or studying.
Week of Action
NUS believes that the current level of support for asylum seekers is inhumane and needs to change. With the government set to decide in April whether or not asylums seekers support should keep pace with the staggering rate of inflation, there couldn’t be a more important time to raise awareness about this issue.
Student Action for Refugees (STAR), along with a coalition of organisations including Amnesty International and Still Human Still Here, are having a week of action from February 20th-February 26th to make that change happen and fight for the rights of asylum seekers to live in our communities with dignity.
Get Involved! Here a few ideas about how you can participate in the Week of Action:
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Challenge yourselves and others to live on the asylum support level (£5 per day) during the week of action. NEC members, including Vice President of Society & Citizenship Dannie Grufferty and President Liam Burns have already signed on to do it! Be sure to blog about your experience.
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Host a sleep out to raise awareness about asylum seeker destitution
Visit STAR and Still Human Still Here for more ideas, resources and information. Together we can make the week of action count.
Email Vice President Society & Citizenship Dannie Grufferty for more information.