First of all, I would like to mention how important MRCF has been in my life for the past two years. I found MRCF thanks to a housemate who showed me this place, and MRCF helped me in many ways. At first, I would come for their voucher exchange scheme. It was only this way that I was able to have cash from time to time, and that helped me in getting items that I usually can’t find at Tesco or Sainsbury’s. And then, I would come for the visits to the theatre, the cinema, the afternoon picnics, or the workshops.
Even though I am not able to attend some of these events at the moment, I remember that they were really important to me. For example: the creative writing workshop with writer Shazea Quraishi, and the theatre with Maja. Besides, I found the opportunity of meeting new people in the same situation as I am. I found comfort at MRCF.
I also participated in the mentoring project and was delighted to meet Morven, my mentor, a very kind lady whom I still talk to from time to time. In an interview given in September 2011, Francesca offered us more information about the different activities available here.
F: I started working at MRCF in 2008, and I’m a qualified social worker, but I work here as a volunteer coordinator and I run a mentoring project for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. We’ve been lucky and we’ve now got some new funding that will go for the next three years, and so we are also supporting people to move on from the mentoring to more self-advocacy to be able to speak up for themselves a little bit more.
A: You talked about the mentoring project. Could you please tell us what it consists of?
F: The mentoring project is a project that supports anyone who would like to be helped emotionally, who would like to meet friends or someone who could actually listen to them on a weekly basis for at least six months. Every migrant, refugee or asylum seeker who would want to be supported can come to MRCF and self-register and we will match them with a mentor, a volunteer who would have a couple of hours every week to meet up with them. A lot of the referrals come through counseling services or mental health services to better support their clients, but people can self-refer themselves.
A: And to be a mentor, what kind of criteria are you looking for?
F: Nothing in particular, really - just for people to be available to meet up with someone else; exchange ideas, their background, their skills; be open to learn something new about their mentees, their culture; and do things together. For example, some of the mentors and mentees would have something in common, so they go to a yoga class or play music together or they go for walks because that’s what they enjoy doing. Other people are just there to listen or to speak with their mentees, which is something special in itself if that’s what mentees are looking for. To become a mentor, there’re no restrictions of age - we tend to work with 18+ mentors - and people can just refer themselves and go through the induction training.
A: For how long has this project been running?
F: Since 2008 with me, but we started as a programme that was supporting refugee doctors who came to this country to requalify and work here and needed some experience in volunteering and working with people who needed support. So they started off the mentoring project, and then we developed it to the point that now anyone can become a mentor.
A: Do you find any difficulties in this project?
F: Many challenges. The mentoring project should be about supporting people to develop their skills and move on, but for people who are still waiting for their everyday life to be sorted, it’s very difficult to think about their future or to know what is going to happen next. Sometimes people are still very worried about very basic things like having a house and having some food or having money to travel, so the challenge is to try and support people emotionally through the mentoring but also to support them one-to-one to make sure that they have all the practical things they need to survive or live in the UK, and maybe to sort out their legal status in the country.
A: I know some people would be interested in volunteering at MRCF. What kind of volunteering activities do you offer?
F: Sometimes people want to volunteer here because they would like to use that volunteering experience in their CV, so I usually ask people what they would like to achieve. Some people need to develop their skills with admin work or as receptionists and we can offer opportunities in the office. Some people volunteer through my project to help me to run the project. Other people support the research or media project, so they are attached to a project to learn how to develop all the skills they need to be able to run a project themselves in the future. I know other people love art or photography or music and I try to help them to set up some workshops where they can use their skills and meet up with a small group of mentors and mentees who are interested in that topic. We tend to ask people to be available for at least six months and to be quite consistent in the way they volunteer because if some people come in and start an activity, they need the continuity and support the activity can give them. So volunteers are very welcome. They (just) need to be understanding and supportive of our main aims and objectives at MRCF.
A: What would you ask people who are coming to MRCF for the first time, either as a volunteer or just out of curiosity.
F: If people come here, sometimes it’s because they’ve heard about us through other people and they already know something about us, but usually I try to give them information about what we do and ask questions slowly that make me understand a little bit more about their personality, things they might be interested in, so I can direct them towards the right activities for them. For a mentee or someone who wants to come to activities only, they just need to register with us and we just need to have their names and contact details. If people want to be involved as volunteers, then we need to have two references for them, and if they are working one to one as mentors with their mentees, then I need to apply for a CRB (criminal record check) because we need to make sure that if they’re working with someone vulnerable, they’re people that we can trust.
Beautifully conducted and compiled interview! It was a pleasure to watch, listen to and read. :)
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