The Refugees Welcome by Niki Groom

The Refugees Welcome North Somerset Hub Opens Its Doors

Back in May I painted huge flowers on the windows of an old estate agents, in the seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare. The building had just been taken on by a small charity and was to become a new refugee welcome centre. Whilst the floral decoration made it look inviting and easy to spot, it also also meant that it made it difficult for passers-by to peer in. Respecting privacy and the desire for anonymity is important in spaces such as this, and it’s also why reportage sketching has been a great way to document the changes I’ve seen in the centre, and it’s people, over the past 3 months.

Refugees Welcome North Somerset (RWNS) Welcome Centre opened in June and since then I’ve seen the space evolve. All of the sketches you’ll see were made in the same area, a large multi-purpose room with a small kitchen and a toilet.
Whilst some people had been waiting years for their asylum decision, a sudden change in Government strategy meant many people received positive decisions all at once. These same people were then given 7 days to vacant their housing, access benefits, look for a job, and find somewhere to rent (previously 28 days). So whilst in June and July I drew people having piano lessons, doing print workshops, women’s yoga and collecting essentials from the free shop, from August onwards I captured scenes of people getting help with CVs, accessing Universal Credit or receiving assistance phoning landlords to find housing, to stop them from becoming street homeless.

The centre has become a stable place in the lives of many. Families come for homework club, people arrive seeking urgent advice, and on Tuesday and Fridays it’s the very popular (and delicious) lunch club. I’ve been there along the way with my sketchbooks and paints, capturing as much as I’ve been able. Most of my sketches were done in Hahnemuhle zig zag books, as these enabled me to take up a small amount of space whilst still capturing large and ongoing scenes (for example the kitchen is tiny but I wanted to paint the chefs doing their thing). On other occasions it was OK to work at scale, so I used single A3 sheets of watercolour paper clipped to board.

You’ll see that at one point I broke the rule of Urban Sketching and added in something that wasn’t there. There was a day when we heard that some people had received letters to inform them that they would be moving to the Bibby Stockholm. This huge prison-like barge that sits on the English Channel was on everyone’s mind, so I added its looming presence in to the background of the sketches I’d made that day.
The artwork has proved useful, raising the profile of the centre. On one occasion a Member of Parliament came to visit – I sketched him and added a speech bubble of him asking “Why doesn’t the Homes for Ukraine scheme apply to everyone”, and this was then shared widely on Twitter and by him on his newsletter. I was also commissioned by Super Culture to illustrate at a Peace Feast, as a way to share a joyful event without the need for intrusive photography.

It’s been a privilege to share my time with this group of people and to represent their lives on the page. Whilst the project has now officially finished, I still plan to sketch at the centre in 2024.

LINKS
https://rwns.org.uk
https://www.facebook.com/groups/RefugeesWelcomeInNorthSomerset
https://superculture.org.uk/journals/peace-fest-brings-nourishment-to-the-local-community

LIST OF SKETCHES
Sketchbook 1 – 15th & 22nd August 2023

1. A sketch of the free shop. It’s always interesting to see what people donate and we had a good laugh at the Cookie Monster Onesie.
The centre was starting to get busy, with a screen printing workshop in one corner that the children loved, and lots of people coming in to take suitcases as they knew that they were soon being moved on from the area.

2. Someone had a piano lesson, the sun was shining outside and the leaves of the tree were visible through the window. In the evening women came in for a free yoga lesson.

3. Donna helped someone with their CV and Finley from Virgin Media volunteered his time to paint the A-board.

Sketchbook 2 – 28th August, 15th September, 20th October 2023

4. Lovely picnic in Grove Park. Food, games, art and craft activities and even some sunshine! I joined another volunteer beforehand to visit one of the local hotels that house a lot of the men in the area, to encourage them to come along. It was not appropriate to sketch at the hotel.

5. John Penrose MP came to visit the centre during lunch club. By this point the government had changed it’s policy and refugees had only 7 days to find jobs / homes after receiving a positive asylum decision. He came to listen to the issues faced by some people at the centre. At one point he briefly sat with a man who was due to be street homeless in days.

6. I popped to Loves Cafe for a cup of tea whilst I waited for the centre to open. The cafe is closely linked to the centre and owner Anna helps to organise the lunch club. Whilst lunch was being prepared a group of men sat playing backgammon to pass the time. Lunch is served! Colourful and delicious.

Sketchbook 3 – 31st October

7 and 8 – The mood in the centre was very intense on this day, and I was asked to come in early to be briefed as they knew that a lot of people were coming in who were about to go street homeless or to the Bibby Stockholm barge. Mainly this was impacting men but there was a family with a young child who were facing homelessness too. I sketched small scenes, piles of donations, volunteers on laptops trying to find solutions and working with refugees to help them understand the system. And still in the kitchen lunch club was being prepared.

Sketchbook 4 – 17th November 2023

9. Whilst lunch was being prepared two children played with the piano. The line for food was very long that day and the food disappeared quickly, people were cold and hungry.
Sketchbook 5 – 24th November 2023
Local organisation Super Culture ran a Peace Feast at the centre and commissioned me to create images of the preparation and the feast for their website and social media. They are happy for me to share these as part of this project.

10. Chefs Farshid, Danish and Mizan preparing food to feed over 80 people

11. Musician Mohamed Errebbaa entertaining guests

12. Young Syrian boy rapping in Arabic

13. Peace Feast in full flow

Sketchbook 5 – 5th December 2023

14. I arrived to find a large group of men gathered around a table being told that they needed to accept any safe accommodation that was offered to them otherwise they would end up on the street in a tent in winter weather. The mood was heavy that day and it was then I noticed that the blue carpet and neutral lino made the flooring look a bit like land and sea. Many of the people will have travelled to the UK from Calais on small boats.

Sketchbook 6 – 19th December 2023

15. Christmas themed lunch club with mince pies and hot spiced apple juice served alongside the usual home cooked vegan food with salad. Volunteers worked really hard this day to find accommodation for more people facing street homelessness. Supermarket deliveries were ordered too for those who didn’t have enough money to buy food.

Sketchbook 7 – 19th December 2023

16. People sat eating and chatting, whilst eating lunch by the Christmas tree.