From Glasgow Campaign to Welcome refugees Festive Season Toys Appeal Request for Donations Dear friends, Our annual appeal for festive season gifts for asylum seeker children is as urgent than ever. Asylum seeker parents continue to have to cope with long-term enforced idleness and extreme poverty and they and their children continue to be detained and deported in distressing circumstances. This against a background of increasing racist scapegoating by unscrupulous and reckless politicians and newspapers. To divert attention from the real culprits responsible for the financial situation and to counter the electoral threat from UKIP, the government has shown itself more than willing to play the race card, with repeated portrayals of immigration and asylum as major problems and further tightening of immigration and asylum legislation. The opposition’s contribution has been to complain that their policies for getting rid of immigrants and refugees is not effective enough. Yet in the face of this official racist scapegoating, the anti-racist successes of Glasgow’s working class communities, schools, social services, and religious and secular bodies since the asylum seekers were first dispersed here continue to be a cause for celebration. Our campaigning together against the evictions of refused refugees and the increasing destitution continues and we have been successful in seeing off the “Go home” vans and posters. Government policy causes additional distress, anxiety and downright cruelty to our already traumatised and vulnerable new friends and neighbours. One small way we can help allay their distress and affirm our sympathy and support is by giving a festive season gift to an asylum seeker child. Every gift is at once an act of kindness and a challenge to racism. Please consider making a contribution yourself or organising a collection or suggesting any organisation you belong to, do so. Actual gifts or financial donations are equally acceptable. We will distribute gifts and donations to seasonal parties organised by local community bodies supporting asylum seekers. Phone or email the number/address below to make arrangements for uplift or drop off. Any cheques should be made payable to Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees and sent to the address below. If you can make your contribution by Monday 9 December that would make our task of distribution easier. Donations after that date will still be welcome. Thank you and please have an enjoyable festive season yourself. Jock Morris Chair GCtWR
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:16:12 +0000
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