Refugee Tales Walk, July 2024

Fact: The UK is the only country in Europe to allow indefinite detention!

Gatwick Detention Welfare Group was set up approximately 30 years ago to improve the welfare and well-being of people affected by the UK’s immigration system through friendship, support and advocacy for fair treatment while calling for positive change and an end to indefinite detention.

Refugee Tales is a Walk in Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees and is rooted in the work of Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group inspired by the experiences of those held in immigration detention. The walk has been going on each year from 2015 calling for an end to indefinite detention.

Helen and Ann walked with the group this year on the last two days of the walk from Wallington in Surrey to Westminster in London.

Thank goodness we did as we both decided it was one of the most heartwarming, uplifting, hopeful events to have been part of. We heard first-hand experience from some people just trying to escape insufferable situations in their home countries only to come to this country to be put into even more insufferable situations in detention or outside with the fear that they could be dragged off the streets to be sent back. Walking with these people with their cheerful resilience was positively uplifting!

The finale of the walk took us to Westminster into what once was Transport House where we listened to Lord Dubs (former Labour minister Alf Dubs and himself a Kindertransportee) along with other politicians and councillors who all talked with passion about the need for the end of Indefinite Detention and for once the feel in the room was that this was going to happen with the new government ready to make changes.

To read more about Refugee Tales visit refugeetales.org or gdwg.org.uk to find out more about the work of GDWG.