The following account of life as an asylum seeker in 21st century Britain should be read by everyone. It speaks of the absolute need for change to the dehumanising and hopeless systems put in place by seemingly compassionless politicians and the parasitic corporations who win their disgusting contracts. The account was written by one of […]

We had a referral a few Friday’s ago from the Red Cross regarding a homeless Asylum Seeker who had arrived into Colchester by pure coincidence and was entirely destitute after being wrongfully removed from the Asylum Support system, knew no one and spoke very little English. For privacy reasons I will call him ‘K’. Thankfully […]

We have three small offices at 15 Queen Street on the top floor. And a comfortable red sofa on the landing where clients wait if we are busy. Nearly every piece of furniture has been donated and even the art on the wall, the toys in baskets, the map of origin countries of clients are […]

My name is Mathilde Vivares and I am a masters student in human rights law at Essex University. I first became involved with Refugee Action Colchester through STAR (Student Action for Refugees) at the university. We started a craft and conversation club, running weekly, with some of the women clients. The project is to provide […]

Today, 20th June, is World Refugee Day, with the theme being “Imagine” this year. We wanted to imagine a better world for everyone, a kinder, more supportive, fairer world. These four wonderful accounts from Zak, Zac, Rahaf and Dayani are demonstrative of different the ways that supporting their own community can enrich and better people’s […]

This week has been Refugee Week 2020 and it has the theme of ‘Imagine’ – many of our volunteers have shared their thoughts on this theme. When we entered lockdown three months ago, I could only imagine the thought of Refugee Action – Colchester being a properly funded organisation. At the time, we didn’t even […]

Hate incidents driven by racism are on the increase – up by a projected increase of 400% this year based on those that we get involved reporting in our capacity as a Hate Crimes Reporting Centre. Racism is very much in the news right now too, following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis […]

As the Highwoods Forest School site was unavailable due to lockdown, we approached some friends who own a small wood and they were very happy for us to use it. It was decided to invite just one household to each session in order to limit numbers and to maintain social distancing rules. We enjoyed warm, […]