Festival by the Lake Online
By Gareth Stevens It was inevitable that the Festival by the Lake would be cancelled this year given the current situation. However a similar inevitability meant that Polly Gifford, the event’s chief organiser, would not be deterred. In an epiphanic…
Refugee Week 2020
By Fiona McGarry This year the theme of Refugee Week (15th-21st June) is ‘Imagine’. It’s important that we do try to imagine, so we can begin to understand how people seeking refuge in the UK are treated – very differently…
War Of Words As Channel Crossings Continue
Another cross-Channel boat containing 25 “displaced persons” was brought into shore at Pett Level on Saturday, as the easing of rough sea conditions over the past week gave a fresh opportunity for small dinghies to make the crossing from France.…
Labour Roots
HIP’s political editor, Alan Bolwell, reports from a Labour Party drive in the key marginal of Hastings and Rye East Sussex College, Hastings played host to a local Labour Roots Rally last Saturday as the party starts to mobilise its…
A Moveable Feast
By Safiya Young August has been a very exciting month, in terms of cooking. Women’s Voice, a “non-profit CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation) run by and for women in Hastings and St Leonards”, recently hosted a series of workshops to promote…
Wi-Fi Refugee On St Leonards Seafront
A homeless Hastings woman with a complex medical condition is facing huge fines for non-payment of parking tickets. Roxanne Roma has been living in a camper van on St Leonards sea front since March this year. Numerous parking tickets litter…
Syrian Resettlement: “Working Brilliantly”, Says Project Co-ordinator
Simon Finlay, Project Co-ordinator of the Syrian Resettlement Programme at Hastings Borough Council, seems a happy man these days. He has spent half a lifetime working for organisations that have endeavoured, on a shoestring, to assist refugees to negotiate the…
Emergency Refugee Camp Dentistry
It’s hard to imagine anything worse than being forced to uproot your family, abandon your home and set off across the planet in search of sanctuary. For many refugees the struggle is made far worse by sickness and physical pain.…
Sanctuary Festival: Sun, Food, Music and Swimming
The beautiful walled garden of Ashburnham Place rang with sounds of music and laughter last Sunday (23rd June) as the Hastings Community of Sanctuary celebrated its Festival by the Lake. Now in its third year, this annual event aims to…
The Refugee Experience: A Two-tier System
In September 2015, the then Prime Minister David Cameron pledged that the UK would welcome 20,000 refugees from camps on the borders of Syria over the next five years. The Syrian Resettlement Programme was the result of this pledge, and…