Daniel Mermelstein on Barnet asylum seekers volunteering in the community

A patch of grass with several people crouching to carry out gardening activities — Volunteers work at the Cultivate Colindale project (Credit – Daniel Mermestein)

On a cold winter weekday a group of volunteers gathers at the site of the Cultivate Colindale community project.

The project participants are working to transform a vacant lot at Heybourne Park into a community hub, gardens and allotments.

The work today involves clearing an area that will become a wildflower meadow in the spring but is currently overrun with weeds. Soon everyone is joining in, uprooting weeds and clearing the space.

Today’s volunteer group includes local residents from a nearby facility housing asylum seekers.

“I used to work in gardening and landscaping in my country. So I like doing this”, says Walid, one of today’s volunteers. He has spent several months in the asylum facility waiting for his application to be decided.

Their participation was organised by the Barnet chapter of Goodgym, a national charity that aims to combine fitness with volunteering. GoodGym Barnet has been making an effort to encourage asylum seekers to get involved in the local community.

“Asylum seekers are incredibly isolated”, says George Ttoouli, one of the Goodgym organisers. “They get put in these facilities after often dangerous journeys, and have very little idea of where they are. Often they get moved around without warning. Some of today’s volunteers came from the Barbican area a few weeks ago and have no idea how to get around Barnet”. Their opportunities to engage with the local community are minimal because of a combination of language barriers, suspicion and simply lack of money for travel.

“There isn’t much they can do while they wait on their asylum decisions”, says George. “They are not allowed to work and have no access to benefits. So volunteering offers an opportunity to do something useful and they embrace it when it’s offered”.

Today’s group includes a mother from the Middle East and her son who has special needs, as well as a young man and an older woman from east Asia. After an hour of work among the weeds the volunteers gather for a chat around a cup of tea and a biscuit. It is a cold day and the refreshments are welcome by all.

Thomas Kendall, the project lead for Cultivate Colindale talks about the impact of the sessions. He says: “Working with GoodGym and people seeking asylum at Cultivate Colindale has been a really meaningful experience for us. The group have been incredibly keen, thoughtful and engaged in the garden, and their presence has added so much to the space. Creating room for people to participate, especially those so often excluded, feels central to what we believe in, and we’re excited to keep developing the garden together.”

GoodGym Barnet has also organised volunteering sessions with asylum seekers at the Mutton Brook Tiny Forest, where volunteers engaged in some citizen science, measuring trees and counting wildlife. On a separate occasion they took part in a litter pick along the Dollis Brook.

“I really enjoyed the tree measuring”, said Danjire from east Africa. “I did not know anything about the Tiny Forest until today”.

Jude Howlett, an organiser with the Dollis Brookers volunteer group, led the litter picking session. “It was great to meet this group of volunteers. They were very keen to help and were quite distressed to see some of the dirtier spots along our walk. They want to come back and tackle those”.

George from Goodgym points out that because so many of the people making these dangerous trips are young, single men, so much of the negative press coverage focuses on alarmist rhetoric around “predatory men”.

“Our experience could not be more different. The people we have met are invariably courteous and respectful. They are eager to make a contribution and embrace the opportunity of getting to know their neighbours and their neighbourhoods better. They also have an incredible wealth of untapped skills. One man I met worked in finance for fourteen years, and with the help of Volunteering Barnet I have managed to help him volunteer with a local charity in need of bookkeeping support.”

GoodGym Barnet is hoping to organise more of these volunteer opportunities in the coming months.

For more information on Cultivate Colindale go to: https://www.wayward.co.uk/news-article/join-our-cultivate-colindale-community-build

To find out about Goodgym go to: https://www.goodgym.org/

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