Refugees hail UNHCR Gateway programme as a British success story

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/19/unhcr-refugee-programme-british-success

Version 0 of 1.

"They gave us three days of orientation about life in England. They told us we would be cold, but we didn't expect to be very, very cold. I came in slippers and a dress. When I got off the plane it was freezing and windy and I thought maybe I wanted to go home."

Rose Bazzie laughs at the memory of her arrival in the UK 10 years ago.

A refugee from the war in Liberia, Bazzie had been living in a camp in Guinea for 14 years when she was offered the chance of a new life in Sheffield. She became one of the first refugees to move to the UK as part of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' Gateway Protection Programme. Now, to mark the 10th anniversary of their arrival, campaigners want the government to expand the scheme.

Under the Gateway programme, the UNHCR identifies the most vulnerable people in long-term refugee camps. They are given international protection before they travel and a full package of support on arrival in their new home. Supporters say this form of resettlement offers a vital alternative to the long and dangerous journeys that many asylum seekers take to try to reach safety.

The UK currently takes about 750 people a year through the Gateway route, a number the Refugee Council, which runs the welcome package with local authorities, wants to see increased.

There are 690,000 people waiting to be resettled worldwide, according to the UNHCR, but only 5,500 resettlement places are offered across the European Union each year. The United States takes 70,000 people annually, the largest number of any country.

Maurice Wren, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "Resettlement is an expression of solidarity with developing countries who host the majority of the world's refugees. For some children, a place in the UK would give them their first ever night's sleep on a mattress in a real bed, access to running water and the hope of a better future."

Some 10 years after arriving in Sheffield with her husband and three-year-old son, Bazzie is a success story. She works as a nurse, runs a women's choir and now has three children. They have local accents, she says proudly, and are "very bright, always top of the class".

"I knew nothing, nothing at all about the UK. The Refugee Council showed us cookers and washers, and we had to get used to all this electrical stuff."

It took Bazzie several years to qualify as a nurse, starting at the bottom with basic English and maths qualifications, but she was determined to succeed. "I always wanted to take every opportunity. I was alive and I wanted to make use of it, I wanted to contribute to the society that accepted me."

The UNHCR wants to see the UK and other European countries take more refugees through direct resettlement. Roland Schilling,the UNHCR's representative in the UK, told the Guardian that camps were not a long-term solution.

"One of my first lessons when I started at UNHCR, was that you can do three things for a refugee. You can send them home or they can stay where they are or you can try to find them a new country. The ideal is that people go home. But there are protracted situations where that is not happening. People are fleeing to camps and you can say it's OK as temporary conditions, but not for five years plus."

Schilling points to the Afghan and Somali conflicts as examples of situations that have no obvious end in sight: "We have camps now where a second or third generation are growing up. We are calling on the UK government and those across Europe to do more."

Asked whether they would consider expanding the scheme, a spokesman for the Home Office said: "We operate one of the largest resettlement programmes in Europe for the most vulnerable refugees. Since 2010 more than 3,000 individuals have safely settled here through the Gateway Protection Programme.

"Further to this, the home secretary recently announced that the UK will provide emergency sanctuary for displaced Syrians who are particularly vulnerable, working closely with the UNHCR."

Bazzie supports the Refugee Council's plea for more people to be given resettlement in the UK. "Life in a camp is horrible, I know this country is a small island, but I wish everyone who was affected by the war could come and live somewhere and breath the fresh air like we did, like they did for us."