Crowdfunding request for group providing practical support to Nigerians deported from the UK
Published: 1 Sep 2016
We, Post Deportation Support, are a group of people who have been deported to Nigeria against our will by the Home Office, taking us far away from the family and communities we had built up in the UK.
We have now set up a group to support other people in our situation, who have been deported from the UK, and are trying to resettle in Nigeria or challenge their deportation. We work with groups in the UK like The Unity Centre and Roots to Return, particularly when there are charter flights that deport up to 100 people from the UK to Nigeria every 2 months.
We provide practical and emotional support, picking people up from the airport in Nigeria when they have been deported, help them to contact any friends or family they may still have in Nigeria, document people’s stories to raise awareness of the injustice and violence of deportations of foreign nationals from the UK and the impact on their family members, keep in touch and help with resettlement – such as finding accommodation and a job.
We do this because we want people experiencing forced deportation to know that they are not alone. Detention and deportation in the UK can make you feel like no one will support you, and so we want people to know that we are here offering support and solidarity.
We want people to know that we do not work for the UK Home Office, and do not support the Home Office in any way. We believe that the people we offer support and solidarity to have been unjustly and often violently deported from the UK against their will, torn away from their long-time families and communities. Many people we meet in Nigeria were not given enough time or help in the UK to put in their asylum or human rights claim, and were deported before they had the chance to work on gathering more evidence, finding a lawyer, or finding money to pay legal fees. We think that the Home Office create this environment of hostility to foreign nationals in the UK, and do not provide proper support – instead they detain and deport people inhumanely.
The money we are trying to raise will go to transport funds for getting to and from the airport people are deported to, phone credit and phones for people to contact any friends or family they may still have in Nigeria, food for when people have just arrived, emergency accommodation costs, emergency transport costs, resources for us to be able to record people’s stories.
Here is the link to our crowdfunding site.