Brim Full of ASHA: Hope Springs Eternal

Yesterday I went to the relaunch and Zion house warming of ASHA (Asylum Support Housing Advice) which is a fantastic organisation which helps asylum seekers and refugees who would otherwise be destitute by one route or another.

Principally it prepares Section 4 applications under the Immigration and Asylum Act of 1999. Destitution is not some unwitting function of the State's practices, rules and laws in my view. It is a determined tool to drive people - in fear of their lives - to go "home" to face mortal danger.

Asylum seekers themselves form 100% or currently 90% of the Management Committee and in the past couple of years 650 Section 4 victories have been won. The missing 10% who had just had a new claim open was arrested and eventually flown out of our welcoming country.

Asha means hope in Urdu - hence the song - Brim Full of Asha - and the stickers and numbers on their map detail of which I will add to this post shortly shows destitute people from most of the globe benefitting.

By far and away the largest numbers in the current scheme of things are from two countries: Iraq and Iran. When Boris Johnson bellyaches about some White Rhodesian chummy getting a bit of bovver from the IND at Croydon I'm sorry but I ain't all that sympathetic. Boris' chum has the friends and the funds to prosper. ASHA's clients do not.

TRIVIA MOMENT: Obviously it goes without saying that the glorious backing vocals on Brim Full of Asha on tour with Cornershop are often provided by the bootiful and talented Ms Doreen Edwards, singer of Distant Cousins op cit.