Oasis Cardiff

[Music] [Applause] policies for me is the important place all mostly the people they help me before I get the visas here yeah we are like family now so that's good Oasis Cardiff is a Center for refugees and asylum-seekers where we help and support people to be involved and integrate into their local it community [Music] being an asylum seeker is hard at some point because you don't have nobody and like the environment is new to you you don't know one but when you come to Isis you feel like you know you're with the family the one important thing with Google say is that we understand where they come from we have people sometimes now they just get dropped in Isis and then they come in they don't know what to go what to do so we have quite a lot of team working really busy to make sure they feel comfortable they know what they do and where they go in for a lots of clients they come and but sometimes still feeling quite trauma tasks that just arrived in in Cardiff they don't know their way around they feel quite lonely and it gives them a safe place to be themselves they start developing confidence when I come first its voices I kind of speak English so I don't understand what these happily noises because a long time I've been in detention center so I have stress everything and then I miss my son so a big question to me how I can't contact my family because I don't know if I don't have phone I don't have any nothing so I hope I used a lot of here so after that I started contact my sense of yeah really happened and still I remember that feeling good if you are not coming - I see so I don't I can get that pointed to contact my son so when I come to always every day I remember that day whenever I feel after that I come to Isis numb four year in Cali so every day I come like my home [Music] we provide lunch every day for people because food is a very community focused event for a lot of our clients we provide English classes every day we do different activities so we have a music group sewing classes arts and drama sports we have developed over the years by trying to provide what clients want the plate project is a food focused project because food is very important to Isis the idea is to train and develop client skills when they're in the still asylum-seekers to win they're refugees so that they can work in a commercial kitchen I think it's important to let the clients have a big say in what we do because then they will want to participate and be involved and it also makes them feel valued it's not just the British people telling what to do [Applause] [Music] the plate project for us is a way of being able to communicate with our clients about what their food heritage is and consequently what their cultural heritage is and that plate of food is really a basis for conversation of who they are and what their life has been leading up to them being here in the center now skills that we are developing in our clients are transferable that's key for us that it's not just about the catering and hospitality sides but we are developing skills and confidence and providing opportunities to communicate with people in the outside world so that when they do have that opportunity to start their life and they're given their settled status and they can work that they've got a wealth of experiences that can really push them up on that employment ladder and help them integrate into society and a much smoother way than they may have been able to do if they hadn't engaged with volunteering here at Oasis [Music] being able to come to a drop-in center like Oasis is priceless it means that you can meet other people quite often from your own country from other countries make new friends and just integrate I think that's one of our main aims is to help people to integrate show them where they can go tell them about the museum and places like that that they can visit the bay just all sorts of different activities put them in touch with other other organisations where they can access their services as well just so that they can settle in and it can really make a huge difference to somebody's life rather than just sat in a room looking at the four walls waiting for the Home Office to make a decision it means they can get out there and have some semblance of normality and miss the chaos that they're currently going through I am in charge of organising activities and events and generally supporting women and families quite often women come from cultural backgrounds where it's not appropriate to mix with men or they just don't feel comfortable mixing with men and so we want them to be able to come here and use the services just like everybody else quite often we meet women and families that come here they're obviously just arriving in a new country sometimes they don't speak very good English if they speak English at all and it's just a whole new world for them and so just being able to gently bring them in and sit them down and just sit and relax and chat over a cup of tea and paint your nails or have an English class learn a bit of the lingo it can really make a big difference to someone's life in a way if I usually do a free cleaning for the refugee and asylum seekers on every Tuesday because I can bare somebody's not very well and I know that some refugees are very hurt I can help them with Chinese medicine so I do acupuncture chiropractic and cooking and something too alternative medical things we need more people and we need more volunteers we need more teachers we need more doctors and I hope more people come and join to a shift work because it's really good and helping other people because we live in the global world and we have to help each other I would like to continue to develop and improve the things we already do and to have enough staff that can support clients so that they have a smooth journey but we can be with them alongside them every step of the way we're not leading them but we're empowering them to be able to stand on their own two feet and for that for me is a really important thing we're not spoon feeding but we're making people realize that they have the resources of themselves to be able to become part of the wider community [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music]