This is my son and our first guest. J was 2 when he moved in- now, at nearly 5, he feels he has a big, Syrian brother. The love between the two of them is wonderful. 
And this is my boy with one of our current guests, Y. Y and his wife and baby girl are from #Eritrea, so we have learned about East African politics, food, music and dancing.
Guests at @RefugeesAtHome come from 55 different countries- well, 54 and stateless. People often think of young, Muslim males from the Middle East; but people can seek safety from anywhere. They just need a reasonable fear of persecution, for a defined reason (race, sex etc)
That is why we have hosted people from Russia, Mexico, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Jamaica.... etc etc
More men come to us for help than women. Reasons for that are complicated, so brace yourself for another insight into the bizarre complexity of asylum;
As an aside, worth saying we at @RefugeesAtHome are not professional aid workers with a background in this stuff. I am a management consultant, other board members are journalists, psychiatrists, a socisl@worker, lawyer, accountant, someone who works in IT for the NHS
We are utterly ordinary people who decided the system was wrong and we wanted to do something about it. That's all. Some of us below, to put faces to us
So, back to the men v women thing. Our impact report on who we help is here; refugeesathome.org/2018/05/impact… and you will see lots more men.
Just over half of asylum seekers in 2015 were men- the journey to safety is long, grim, dangerous and violent. If families can only afford to send one person, they send a man because they are more likely to survive the journey. Grim to think about, and very upsetting.
If women leave their country of origin they stop travelling sooner, or are more likely to fall prey to people like sex traffickers and disappear from the statistics. Some women can stay at home- they are less likely to be arrested, conscripted, etc so their menfolk leave
So more men get to UK. And then, once they get status, they are less likely to be able to get any help with housing. They are 'not vulnerable' or 'not in priority need' and so are left to fend for themselves on the streets of our cities and towns.
Until @RefugeesAtHome hosts step in! We have hosted some people with heartbreaking stories.... a man who desperately needs surgery, but the hospital won't operate because sleeping rough had affected his health so badly. Council says he isn't vulnerable- our hosts disagree
We don't think anyone deserves to sleep rough, not least someone who has travelled and suffered to come here for safety. Our hosts- hundreds of people up and down the country- agree, and amaze us every day with their love and generosity.
