Finding a new home from home

Finding a new home from home

Twelve photographs of refugees in London, 12 interviews about the moment they felt free or safe, the moment the UK became home.

It’s a simple idea, a small exhibition, but powerful.

Two of them pick a library as background for their portraits.

Charles from Senegal chose to be photographed in the British Library: "It's a place where I come very often to reflect, write and study. It's a place full of history."

Says  40-year-old doctor F.: “When I am in any place here, the first thing I ask is, ‘Where is the library?’”

Another doctor, Tracy, seeks sanctuary: “Here I can have a future. I want to feel safe, work as a doctor and live in a quieter, greener place.”

Their routes here are varied. Jiyan (an alias – flight does not necessarily end fears) left Turkey “in a box made for me. I don’t know how long the journey took, I just shut my eyes and dreamed about the future. When I came out I was in Dalston [in east London] outside the Kurdish Community Centre.” Eiad Zinah, 29, escaped from Syria in a boat with 400 others.

Several had a hard time when they arrived, especially at the hands of the Home Office (memo to Prime Minister Theresa May’s successor at the Home Office: rules are necessary, but hostility and hindrance are not). Most have been helped by refugee and migrant organisations, are motivated by hope and are desperate to work: “As a refugee, all you hear is negative,” says 27-year-old Hodan Omar from Somalia. “Everything seems to conspire to put you down, so you think that maybe you are never going to make it. But at Sourced [a corporate services company where he got a placement thanks to the charity Breaking Barriers] I felt positive. They trusted me with important things. I felt capable. It freed me of that negative cloud. I’ve gained skills, experience and confidence. Now I am hopeful I can find a good job.”

Vejdan Efravi is 46 and from Iran, via horseback, foot and lorry: “From the first day I arrived in England, dirty, exhausted and hungry, I felt like a newborn. Imagine that you have been kept in a cave for years, then the door suddenly opens. I am safe here. I never felt at home in my own country because I was a second-, third-class citizen. But here, I feel myself. I feel part of the country – 100 per cent British.”

Similarly, 32-year-old Abrar Hussain from Pakistan, recalls getting a small flat in North London: "It was a dream come true. It gave me stability. I felt 'This is my place'.

"When I finally got my refugee status in April 2011, I felt free.  I looked at the sky and felt I could fly."

Ordinary people, extraordinary lives. They want is a chance to be ordinary people again, to be themselves. 

* Freedom From Fear, photographs by Caroline Irby, interviews by Veronique Mistiaen, is at the Archivist’s Gallery, Unit V, Reliance Wharf, 2-10 Hertford Road, N1, 10am-6pm, until 18 July. Info: 3598 2626