In my Annual review for 2007 I said that 2008 would be another testing year but that with your continued support I believed that we could manage it.   Well, 2008 is now behind us and DCRSC is still supporting Asylum Seekers and Refugees (ASR) in Devon and Cornwall, although mainly Plymouth.   It hasn’t been easy, I know, for our Volunteers, Trustees nor our Project Support Workers but the commitment shown by everyone has been the reason for our continued involvement in supporting those vulnerable people in our community.

It is well known that all Charities are having a hard time in maintaining adequate funds and DCRSC is no exception.   The Trustees spent many months in negotiation with Plymouth City Council (PCC), through the Social Inclusion Unit³ (SIU), and the Local Strategic Partnership⁴, to form a Consortium with START⁵ (Students & Refugees Together) and Refugees First⁶ to enable us to receive some funding over three years. It wasn’t as much as we would have liked, amounting to approximately £17,500 each year but it has and is helping. A Service Level Agreement had to be drawn up with the SIU so that it could be seen that we were using the funds in the way the money had been allocated.   All this took over 12 months to complete before we saw any of the funds but we were pleased that it was backdated to April 2008.   Church Groups and personal donations continue to be gratefully received, amounting to about £12,000 in the year.

To increase the number of service users that we could help and support with our reduced staff level, during the year some volunteers came forward, willing to be trained as voluntary auxiliary Project Support Workers.   Our staff were willing to train them in dealing with the more simple and straight forward cases, such as arranging doctor, dentist and hospital appointments; obtaining bus and train tickets for meetings with their lawyers and the Immigration Authorities; and answers to many other problems. We now have four or five volunteers who are able to take on this responsibility.   During 2008 there have been approximately 4,000 consultations, and this could only have been achieved with the extra help these volunteers have been able to give.   This work that our professional Project Support Workers and volunteers do, can be exceedingly stressful, particularly when some applications for asylum have been refused after many months and often years of waiting.   We have had cases that have reached the media because of the seemingly inhuman attitude of the authorities, and there are many more that don’t reach that sort of publicity but are known to our Project Support Workers.

Our Food Programme is still a vital part of the support we give to our service users.   During the year we have issued nearly 2,000 parcels to both permanent or temporary destitute service users. In another part of our Review you will see more details of this vital support.   We only have another 12 months of the funds from LankellyChase⁷, who have been very supportive of our problems. As have many church communities and individuals during the year.   Our thanks go to them as it does to our Food Programme Co-ordinator and his assistant, Geoffrey Read and Christine Reid, together with the band of Food Team volunteers.   The work involved is considerable and requires many hours of collecting, stock-taking, buying, storing and preparing the food parcels.

During the year DCRSC has taken over from Churches Together in Plymouth⁸ (CTiP), the running of the Clothing Store, co-ordinated by a student, having had to say a reluctant goodbye to David Bell who had been the mainstay of the store for some time.   This facility is greatly appreciated by many of our service users who find our climate difficult and often arrive in this country with just the clothes they stand up in.   We also said good-bye to Sister Mary Chambers, who had also been a volunteer from the beginning.

We continue to have a number of computers in our basement for use by our service users who, with this facility, are able to keep in touch with their families across the world and to access information that can help with their applications for asylum.

Merlin Mbahin, who was our Administrator, left us during the year to further his career as an accountant, and we then appointed Pat Joyce who combined her voluntary casework with two days of administration and financial work.   Her expertise has been very helpful to our organisation.   Trish Baxter, our senior Project Support Worker, who has been with us for almost the whole time of our existence, was awarded the Sam Kallon Memorial Award for work with ASR.   This was awarded to her at the Respect Festival held in the Plymouth Guildhall. We are not only proud that Trish has won this award but that it keeps Sam Kallon’s memory alive.   Sam and his wife Sarah, as you know were the founders of DCRSC in 1999.

One of our new innovations of 2008 was the building of our web-site, kept up-to-date by Geoff Read and is an excellent means of publicity for our organisation.   Please visit:   http://dcrsc.cfsites.org/

So ends another year.   2009 will be a special year as it is the 10^th Anniversary of our organisation’s foundation and we are planning a number of special events.   We hope to see you at some of these!

Mrs. Lorna M. Sewell
Chair of the Board of Trustees
Devon & Cornwall Refugee Support Council