Campaign launched to support people seeking asylum in protecting themselves and their families during the Covid-19 crisis
This amount for ONE WEEK’S SUPPLY OF EVERYTHING!
We are supporting the campaign launched By Refugee Action on Wednesday 29th April, Email Your MP campaign action, to contact your MP about the conditions suffered by people seeking asylum. Already forced to survive on 74% of what the poorest British citizens receive in support, thousands of these most vulnerable people are now suffering hunger and extreme hardship, and are at huge and increasing risk of contracting the Covid-19 virus. You can read this blog post by Loraine Mponela, chairperson for Coventry Asylum and Refugee Action Group, and expert by experience on what it is like in reality to be trying to cope, with the unique challenges faced by people seeking asylum and undocumented migrants during Covid-19. She also explains how many people have the qualifications to work in essential services yet are prevented from doing so by the ban.
Loraine Mponela, chairperson for Coventry Asylum and Refugee Action Group
Refugee Action explains:
“People seeking asylum receive just £5.39 per day on asylum support. This is utterly inadequate in normal times. During a pandemic, it puts lives at risk. People are unable to travel long distances to reach cheaper supermarkets, food prices in local shops have spiked, and food banks have closed.
In March, the Government raised Universal Credit by £20 per week to ensure people requiring support were able to adapt to the crisis. This morning we launch an Email Your MP campaign action to call on the Government to do the same for asylum support. We are also asking for asylum support rates to be relinked to mainstream benefits so that those seeking asylum are never again put in such an unequal position where they are forced to live 74% below the poverty line.”
We hope our HCoS members will contact their MP to express in their own words their concern about this matter, and ask the MP to contact the Home Office and tell them that it is now a matter of immediate urgency that asylum support must be increased (click here to take action).