I have (by myself! even though I am a girl!) finally got round to setting up my own wireless access. I never feel like blogging at my PC in my home office, because that is for work, and it is more sociable and motherly to be in the sitting room, doing a bit of surfing and blogging on my laptop, while at the same time helping my son with his K'nex.
I have not found much I wanted to comment on this past month. There was the Commission on Integration and Cohesion report (original website seems to have disappeared in the Brown changeover) which was so practical and sensible, it didn't really hit the headlines, but in its emphasis on local voluntary activities links nicely with an initiative I have just become involved in, the Time Together Refugee Mentoring scheme.
I have not been matched with a mentee yet, but it seems likely it will be someone from the Gateway Protection Programme, and therefore probably Ethiopian. The Programme doesn't get much publicity, deliberately I suspect, but seems to me to be a very Good Thing, whereby various countries, in partnership with the UN High Commission on Refugees, have a managed programme of bringing in groups of refugees, usually from refugee camps in the developing world (where most refugees are found). The UK is taking 400 this year, I believe, of which Brighton is taking 40, who are Ethopians in refugee camps in Kenya. Rather than facing the random process and frequently inhumane treatment arising from trying to reach a country, illegally, and then trying to claim asylum, families and groups are given support and mentoring in resettling in the UK.
Comments