Café of Sanctuary
Gareth Stevens talks to Rossana Leal and Yeser Mohammed at the Refugee Buddy Project’s new Dove Café on Bexhill Road.
In a month in which a government minister conceded that Manston Asylum Centre was operating illegally, 11 asylum seekers were abandoned at Victoria railway station with nowhere to stay, without warm clothing and many of them wearing flip-flops – it is clear that the UK’s immigration system is deeply flawed and underpinned by bigoted inhumanity. When Suella Braverman uses incendiary language that likens the plight of beleaguered migrants and refugees to an ‘invasion’ – it is clear that direct policy decisions are taking a hitherto more bureaucratic hostile environment into a new phase of intentional abuses of human rights. If Tory disdain for refugees were not enough, the terrorist firebombing of Manston indicates that the Home Secretary’s rhetoric is literally adding fuel to the fire of hate.
CREDIT: Andrew Grainger
In such a climate warm inclusive and welcoming spaces are needed to counterpose this hostility.
The Refugee Buddy Project has always been about more than providing friends and allies for newly arrived refugees and migrants. When I meet with its CEO Rossana Leal and one of its eight Trustees, Yeser Mohammed, they both insist that there is a pressing need to counter prevailing narratives. Part of the project’s key mission is to work with communities to ‘create a culture of welcome’.
Yeser tells me how she first came to be involved with the Refugee Buddy Project. She is a cardiac physiologist at the Conquest Hospital and once had to act as a translator for a Syrian person who had been admitted. This led to a stark realisation of just how vulnerable recently arrived refugees with little English were.
The Dove Café in the western end of St Leonards is just one of the many initiatives set up to achieve this aim. Whilst the café has been open throughout the summer, there was an official launch party on Saturday 12 November including a ‘ribbon cutting ceremony’ attended by the Mayor of Hastings Cllr James Bacon. Although there is a range of weekly rotating specials, the menu is always full of delicious home cooked dishes ranging from falafel, potato and kale soup, dahls and baklava.
Fresh back from joining the protests at Manston the day before, Rossana tells me how the community café is a safe haven for everyone in the local refugee community to come together and ‘break bread’. Not only that, it provides employment opportunities for chefs, servers and the outside signage and logo was designed by a Buddy Project participant who is currently studying graphic design at Brighton University.
“The Dove Cafe is a warm and safe place for all looking for refuge. We are currently seeing so much hostility in the media from politicians who choose to blame the most vulnerable for the many things that are wrong in our society. We hope that people will come to the cafe and share their sorrows, anxieties and thoughts. It is always good to feel that you are not alone and are part of a bigger network of people who care,” Rossana tells me.
Alex Kempton, Director of Operations and Campaigns says: “We are delighted to have a community space again, one which will certainly be needed in the coming difficult winter months whether as a space to socialise, or to get warm food and drink without breaking the bank. The Dove Café is a welcoming, vibrant space open to everyone in the community.”
• Visit the Dove Café, 19 Bexhill Road, St Leonards-On-Sea TN38 OAH. Opening times Thursday to Saturday 10am-4pm. For more information please visit therefugeebuddyproject.org
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