Amira
Amira is a 35 year old mother of four children, who escaped Syria to live in Lebanon for three years after her husband was killed. She was resettled in the UK by the UN in 2016:
"I don’t like to think about my life in the future. I don’t want to change and move again. Yeah, I don’t want to... sometimes my children say to me, “Mum let's move house.” They need a big house. I told them, “I don’t want to move, I don’t want to because, you know, why, because, you know, also where you understand the area, you about your friends, I can’t explain to you... because you know, if you sit, relax, stay in the same house, you will become... self confident, (but) if you go to another area, I think this is very difficult. It’s hard to change house."
This advice from the Citizens Advice Bureaux illustrates how much is expected of refugees once they are granted refugee status - they must work quickly to complete all the paperwork necessary to set up a life in the UK (to establish a bank account and NI number, access housing support and explore their work options…). Any financial and housing support that they have received during their asylum claim is stopped 28 days after the decision is made on their refugee status, and they must move quickly within a foreign system in order to make new arrangements to support themselves.
