Mattieu [pseudonym] is in his 40s, from the Middle East. This is an interview with Tom C in Mattieu’s Clearsprings house on Tuesday 9th May 2023.

Summary

Mattieu has been helped by SASS with a double bed, new mattress, supportive pillows and other items to help him recuperate from major throat cancer surgery; also with cash to supplement his allowance because of his dietary needs (diabetes 2, need for fresh fruit and veg). He describes this support as ‘amazing, like a miracle’. He became a regular volunteer cook in our drop-in kitchens. 

He says the drop-ins are crucial because otherwise, he and others like him would not be able to go out and mix with people, but would be isolated at home. 

He has 3 suggestions for developing SASS services. 

First, provide meals on more days a week – just meals, not all the drop-in activities. 

Second, provide education about UK life; how to live together in the shared houses; and the laws and rules around diversity, difference, tolerance and respect of religion, ethnicity, race etc; and respect for privacy.

Third, increase recruitment of young volunteers (students and others) at SASS drop-ins, to better match the age profile of the asylum seekers.

TOM Tell me about your impressions of SASS.

MATTIEU After I had my first [throat cancer] surgery, and I knew I would be having more surgery about two months later, nobody helped me. I needed lots of things to help me recover, first of all a bigger bed, to be able to change position, because I’m a little bit bigger size, and also my mattress was no good, the one the Home Office gives us is bad. I called so many people and I asked the Clearsprings house manager, they all just said, Okay, you’ll only be sick for two weeks, you don’t need a better mattress, even when I explained I had had surgery in my neck! Then [S, volunteer] from UID group and the FAN group told me about SASS. SASS had just opened again after Covid, in April 2022. Even before I went to the drop-in, one day there was a knock on my door. It was SASS volunteers, M and P. They asked to see the bed, and they saw it was so bad, and after a few days I received a new bed, with a new mattress, and also a new duvet from Amazon came here. It is amazing to help me like this. It was like a miracle to me … I needed a bed and I got it! And afterwards I asked M for shoes, she got two new pairs for me. And then in August, you know I’m diabetic type 2, I spoke many times with Migration Help and others to ask to have more money for food but they say No, you are okay with the £40 a week – but I’m not OK with the £40 a week!

TOM You need a special diet…

MATTIEU I need more vegetables and fruit, more fibre. And I’m hungry all the time. I can keep myself like 2-3 hours hungry, but afterwards I don’t feel good and I need to eat some fruit. But if you eat say £2 of fruit every day, that’s £14 a week. So I speak with G [SASS staff member], he talks with his manager, and they help me: they give me £10 every week to help me a little bit with my diet. This is amazing. I love the SASS group drop-ins, I’m a volunteer now, I cook so many meals at St James on Fridays and in York Place also on Saturdays. It is good to meet so many people from so many different countries, you have some food together, you share. It is important to go out and be with people. Normally, I don’t go outside my home. If you don’t have money, how can you go out? With the money I get on the Aspen card on a Monday, I go to buy my food, I finish all the £45 on Monday, after that I stay at home. When I get the £10 from SASS, I get some fruit and vegetables. But mostly I stay at home. So I need the drop-in, because I need to go out. On Friday I go to pray at the mosque and after that I go to the drop-in, so it’s full day for me, Friday, I go out, I see people. You know, I’m 43 years old nearly, not really young to be in the street to chat up girls and stuff like that. You need to go outside, like today I was out with you, no problem, sometimes I do, but I feel shy, I’m not young enough to do that, so I feel better to be at home. Saturdays sometimes I go to SASS drop-ins at York Place. That’s a nice day also. I go to College on Thursday, so I’ve never been to York Place on Thursday when Unity and Diversity have their drop-in. 

TOM What do you think SASS could do better? I mean, imagine if we had more money so we could do anything we want?

MATTIEU If you have more money, I think you should do more days a week, just for coming to have a meal, because some people are just coming to eat, not for English classes and everything else, just for the meal. Just provide food, afternoons or evenings. That would help so many people here. And another thing. I had the chance to live in Europe for 8 years before I came to UK, so I learned so much about European people, and I was very lucky because I lived at home with some French people … so I feel I’m lucky, I understand life in Europe, but sometimes my housemates here in the house, they make me nervous. And once I asked the Clearsprings house manager: They make me nervous, who should I call? And she tells me: Call the police. Because here there is no social worker for us. This is the government system. They give us the house, they give us £45 (when I arrived it was £35, now £45), the government helps you with just these two things, and with the NHS also. They don’t help with all the things SASS does, and others like Better Welcome. There are a lot of refugees and you can’t help all of these people at the same time. But I think people need more communication about how to live in European countries. They want to learn English, and it is good to speak English, so they understand people, but there is much more they need to understand. To understand that people are accepted as different: we are a different colour, but it doesn’t mean we are not the same, we are human beings in the end, women and men, we are not different, we are the same, never mind about religions, we are just human. In the UK, they don’t learn how to live together. In France or Luxembourg, in my experience, at first they put you in a ‘foyer’ (reception centre), in Luxembourg it was really nice because it was mixed, with women and men and families together, living in different parts of the site, but at the end of the day we all ate and had conversation together. There was security, and there was a social worker, to teach you how to live in Europe. What is the law in the country, what are the rules. I stayed there 2 months, then we transferred to house. So it is nice to learn at the beginning how to live together. They give you a little job, like cleaning or washing up, to feel how it is to live here, to contribute. But in our house here, if nobody else cleans, I leave it dirty like this, because we wait until the manager comes and forces us. The problem is, I have the first room [by the front door] and I’m the one who wakes up early, so when she comes, I get the problem with her!

TOM People are just put into these houses and left alone… In the English classes, at SASS and others, often there is some teaching about how you do things, how to live together in this country, and so on, but it’s not enough?

MATTIEU At the College also there is one day explaining that there is no difference between religions, between colours, countries, because it is mixed here a lot, there’s so many countries. Just look in the streets. I’m a Muslim, and I see there are few mosques in Paris, but here in the UK it’s different, in France we are not free enough, we are not allowed to open mosques, we rent shops or houses to make a mosque. But in UK I think we’re free enough. In Swansea there are several mosques, one new just built, one inside the university, and here I feel free enough to go to pray, go to the mosque, normal, any day. And I see two police, a man and woman, inside the mosque sometimes. I go in, see what’s happening, easy! I feel safe, free. I feel more free here, because in France there is problem with the Republic, they think they are not free enough with Muslim people…

TOM When people arrive in this country, they need some education about how to live here. And that can happen when people just have the chance to socialise, meet other people, have normal conversations, like at SASS. But when you’re left in a house like this one, completely isolated, you don’t know anyone, you’re having arguments about who takes the rubbish out and who cleans the floor, and that’s all of your communication, that’s terrible …

MATTIEU The thing is, actually: we are refugees. We won’t go back to our country. This is the problem. If we live 100 years without papers here, we won’t go back again to our country. Unless the government changes. So you should learn how to live here. For example, I have my room. I do anything I like in my room. My religion, my girlfriend, my stuff. It is my life. And we go outside and we respect each other. And another thing about the SASS group, I like the students who come to volunteer, it is very nice and important. They are younger people and there are a lot of younger people among the asylum seekers and they understand each other fast and easily, they smile a lot… 

TOM You didn’t say it, but a lot of the SASS volunteers are like my age…

MATTIEU And my age also! 

Tuesday 9th May 2023.