Charles’s Story

“I had some previous experience volunteering with refugees and asylum seekers, which I found very fulfilling.

I thought it would be interesting to see if I could do something similar and perhaps learn a bit more. I have many friends like me and that's wonderful, but I get a great deal of joy learning from people who are very different. I'm a Christian but I enjoy meeting people who are Muslim or another religion and sharing something of their faith and their traditions.

I guess I had to do quite a bit of adapting. I've certainly learned about a country in the news where I haven’t previously had any connections, and that's been interesting. It's just learning about someone whose whole life experience is totally different from mine and therefore how do you establish a genuine, respectful human relationship, person to person, with someone so different? That’s a huge challenge, but it's a challenge I love. We did bond in the end and we're still in touch.

When we first met, my mentee had just left school and was starting college. He arrived in this country when he was fourteen, not speaking any English. I had to work out how I could best relate to him and find out what kind of support he wanted and needed.

I think another thing I had to learn is how different it is for people who don't have regular stable security in their lives in the way that I do. Because of his trauma, he doesn't sleep well at night. So whenever I had a meeting arranged with him, I had to phone him to make sure that he was awake.

A really good thing was when we got to the summer holidays after his first year at college. He had six weeks. So I said to him in the beginning, ‘is there anything you would like to do?’ And he said 'I'd like to go to Bournemouth!’ That was because Asylum Welcome had arranged trips to the sea, and he loved these. I said I’d be happy to take him and a couple of friends. We all went down on the beach and had a good time, stopping for some halal food on the way home. I remember driving back into Oxford with him afterwards. And he was saying, ‘I'm so happy’. That just meant so much.

He didn't talk about his past experiences. I learned how his lack of self-confidence meant it was hard for him to really think he could achieve anything very much. So it was a question of pointing to things that he was doing well and affirming and encouraging him.

I had a text from him the other day full of excitement because he passed his driving theory test. I met with him a couple of days after and he'd just been to his first driving lesson and he was very thrilled with being behind the wheel for the first time.

I passionately think that everybody should support the work of Refugee Resource. It is about the whole business of loving your neighbour. People who are most excluded and most vulnerable are the people who most deserve care and attention.””