Celebrating International Migrants Day - 18 December 2020
The day aims to raise awareness of the challenges of international migration and to remember the refugees and migrants who have tragically lost their lives. The observance of International Migrants Day this year focuses on the stories of social cohesion – these stories are as varied and unique as each of the millions of migrants living new lives and building new communities across the globe.
Lewisham is lucky to be home to one of the most diverse communities in the whole of the country, with over 170 languages spoken here. People come to our borough for all sorts of reasons; some are here as refugees fleeing war, some are here to work in our public services, others simply to live with the person they love. Lewisham is open and welcomes everyone. We want to mark this International Migrants Day by celebrating the huge contribution migrants make to our community in Lewisham.
This year has been a year like no other. The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating globally – but the pandemic has also shown the resilience of our community. In Lewisham, we have been fortunate to have migrants fighting the pandemic as key workers in the Council, the NHS and across our public services. Some of the first mutual aid groups across the country were set up in Lewisham and our migrant residents are amongst those volunteering in a wide variety of roles to support the local community.
As a local authority we have been working hard to ensure that we are doing all we can to protect and improve migrants’ rights in our borough and beyond. This year we reached a major milestone in making Lewisham a Borough of Sanctuary by implementing the Council’s trailblazing new Sanctuary Strategy. Our commitment to make Lewisham a Borough of Sanctuary is our response to the concept of a “hostile environment”. This is where people and organisations are encouraged to challenge anyone coming from abroad on their right to be in the UK. The principle of sanctuary challenges this hostility by welcoming and offering support to refugees, asylum-seeks and migrants.
Lewisham has been offering sanctuary to refugees for generations, from Belgium during the First World War and Vietnam in the 1970s and 80s. The current war in Syria led to the Council creating London’s leading refugee resettlement programme. Waed, who arrived in Lewisham in October 2019 with her husband and three children, fled Syria in 2013. Waed lived in the Zaatari camp in Jordan for seven years where she taught primary school age children.
Recently Waed said:
“I miss my beautiful country of Syria and I hope one day soon the wars will stop and people can live in peace again. Here in Lewisham I feel safe again. I want to thank the council for their help and all the people who have been so nice to me and my family. Now I can help too by interpreting and supporting other refugee families and the local community here as I did in the Zaatari camp.”
We are also supporting migrants who have lived in Lewisham for generations. Brexit has created challenges for all of us, but especially for our European Union residents. The Council has encouraged and provided free administration support for application for Settled Status and over 40,000 of our EU residents have now applied. In addition, rough sleepers originally from EU countries now face the risk of deportation under new immigration rules. In our effort to provide shelter to all rough sleepers the Council will not collaborate with the Government by sharing data on people sleeping rough in Lewisham.
We are also proud to have many residents and families from the Windrush generation. They have made an enormous contribution to our borough and influence almost every aspect of our culture and modern life. As a Council we have been providing support to residents who have been affected by immigration rules denying citizenship to so many in the Windrush Generation.
These examples are just part of the rich diversity of our borough’s migrants. We are grateful for what they have brought to Lewisham, especially in the most difficult of years. And so to everyone who has come from abroad to make Lewisham your home – thank you.
Cllr Kevin Bonavia
Cabinet member for Democracy, Refugees & Accountability