Pop-Up Charity Shop March 7, 2012

During the last week of term last December, we ran a charity shop in Qudos, using clothes, shoes, accessories and books from Unity’s charity shop in Govan (and, of course, the money raised went to Unity). It was a pretty big success, so we decided to do another!

This one takes place during Glasgow University’s RAG (Raising and Giving) Week, from the 12th-16th of March. On the Monday, it’ll be in Jim’s Bar from 12-5, but for the rest of the week it’s in Qudos from 11-4, as before. Come along and see all the cheap second hand clothes, shoes, accessories and books we have to offer!

If you want to help run the shop at any point during the week, add yourself to this Doodle page to let us know when you can help. We also need to go to Govan on Saturday to pick out clothes from Unity’s shop to sell, if you’re available to come then that would be appreciated.

Sleep Out with GU Amnesty! February 27, 2012

Last November, STAR Glasgow slept overnight on the steps of the Wellington Church on University Avenue to raise money for a night shelter for destitute asylum seekers. This March 2nd, we’re doing it again; this time to raise money for Positive Action in Housing. This time, however, we are running the event with the Glasgow University Amnesty International society in order to make a bigger, better and more fantastic sleepout than ever before!

Positive Action in Housing (PAiH) is a Scottish charity that focuses on asylum seekers who have been made to live on the streets by the Home Office after their claims are rejected. This is an inhumane tactic used by the UK Border Agency to urge these people to return to the countries from which they fled. They don’t even have the right to use homeless shelters or hostels, so PAiH sets up special night shelters which they can use. As these asylum seekers are also deinied the right to work in the UK, many of them are starving, and so PAiH has set up a destitution fund to give them adequate food.

If you were at the last sleep out, you’ll already know how great it was for all of us; we had lots of guitar playing, singing and dancing, and the performance of a short play written specially for the occasion. This year we expect the same kind of happiness, but in much greater quantities. If you want to take part, just wrap up warm and bring your sleeping bag to the front steps of the Wellington Church at 8pm on the 2nd of March. If you can’t make it, you can still help out by sponsoring us, which can be done by following this link: www.justgiving.com/staramnestysleepout

Pub Quiz!! January 22, 2012

Do you feel like there isn’t enough quizzing in your life?
Have you always wanted to win first prize in something and be the envy of all your friends?
Not been to the pub in a while?
Then come to the STAR Pub Quiz next Sunday (the 29th) and see how well you do!

There’ll be a raffle, there’ll be prizes and it’s all raising money for a good cause.

It will cost you £2 to compete in the quiz, and ever penny of that goes towards buying medicine for John Oguchukwu, a Glasgow Uni student who was deported last July. Find out more about him here.

Happy New Year! January 9, 2012

Happy New Year, Starpeople.  I hope you all had a great Christmas and are all ready for a new semester of putting lots of ideas, enthusiasm and effort into working with STAR.

This is going to be a quick post with some of our plans for this semester. Nothing is set in stone or planned in a lot of detail yet so i’ll update again when things are more worked out. Until then, here’s a rough idea of what’s gonna be happening over the next few months.

Ceilidh
Every year, STAR get together with the Glasgow Uni Amnesty and Red Cross  groups to host a ceilidh. This is always a great night and raises lots of money.

Sleep Out
Now that we’ve all recovered from our last sleep out, we’re going to go straight back in to doing another one. Hopefully, this will happen in February sometime before it gets too much like Spring.

Oor John
Anyone involved last semester will be aware of this campaign. We plan to keep working with and campaigning for John as much as we possibly can.

Other Projects
There are a couple of other organisations that are looking to recruit volunteers right now. Red Cross are looking for volunteers to work within their Refugee Services Unit and Scottish Detainee Volunteers are looking for people to visit detainees in Dungavel. If anyone is interested in being involved with these organisations, please get in touch as soon as possible. The deadline for the Red Cross is the 16th and for SDV is the 27th.

Of course, this isn’t everything. There’s always lots going on and almost everything we were involved in last semester will still be going on this semester. Unity are always looking for volunteers and as fantastic as we are, we haven’t managed to solve all the problems refugees face so we aren’t going to be short of campaigns, protests and fundraising opportunities!

As always, feel free to get in touch if you want to get involved. Our meetings are on Tuesday evenings in the QMU at 6pm so come along if you can.

Dawn Raids & Child Detention November 12, 2011

At the end of last year, the government pledged to end child detention by May 2011. It was a LibDem manifesto committment, and the coalition agreed to implement it as part of their post election coalition agreement. David Cameron described the process as a “scandal” and Nick Clegg released a statement describing it as a “shameful” process which “no innocent child should ever have to endure.
However, a year on this is still happening. According to the Guardian between May and August 2011 over 700 children were detained at south east ports, a third of whom were unaccompanied. Furthermore, they have opened a new centre for detaining children; Cedars.  According to the UKBA, Cedars is not a detention centre, it is a “pre-departure accomodation centre.” It has lots of bright colours, a play area and a pool table. It also has two boundary fences and is staffed by UKBA officials and the security force, G4S. (Yes, they are the same people who were responsible for the asphyxiation of Jimmy Mubenga on his deportation flight.) Instead of getting rid of child detention, the UKBA have rebranded it, added a play park and employed Barnardos to work with the children. They are still detaining children.
A few years ago, dawn raids on asylum seekers were stopped in Glasgow due to widespread opposition from communities. However, recently they have been used again. Many families with children are being dawn raided. Earlier this week, a single mother called Funke and her 5 year old son, Joseph, were woken at 7am by six or seven UKBA officials crashing through their door. Funke was handcuffed, while the UKBA men got Joseph out of bed, dressed him and took them both into detention. This is not uncommon but it is completely unnecessary. Funke had been to report at the Home Office the day before her arrest- there is no reason they could not have detained her and Joseph then but instead they chose to break into her house at 7am. They have been in detention since the raid, and are due to be forcibly deported at 10pm tonight (Saturday 12th.)

Protest
We are joining a protest against these things outside the UKBA office on Monday the 21st November, the day after Universal Childrens Day, at 10am. The UKBA office is on Brand Street, in Cessnock. It is very important that this protest is publicised as widely as possible, so please spread the word to everyone you know. There is a lot of preparation to do before the protest itself; if you can spare some time to help plan then please get in touch.

For more information about any of the above, feel free to drop us an email.

Update! October 31, 2011

Hello there!
This is just a quick update to let you know what we’ve been up to so far in this semester.
Firstly, we’ve run several informal workshops on how the asylum process works in the UK and the effects of this process on the individuals involved. This tends to be the focus of our weekly meetings, so come along two the QMU at 6pm on Tuesdays if you want to be involved.
We’ve also had guest speakers. During our first meeting of the year, Hilary from STAR National came along and talked about the origins of STAR, the national network of STAR groups and how STAR Glasgow fits in. More recently, we invited Phil from the Unity Centre to tell us about what the Unity Centre does and the opportunities for volunteering with Unity.
Fundraising has also played a key role in our activities. The campaign we have focused on most this semester is that of student John Oguchukwu. The ‘Oor John’ Campaign is very important to us at Glasgow STAR as John was a third year Business student at the University of Glasgow when he was deported in July. John is in desperate need of money and medical care so we have held two consecutive bakestalls on the Glasgow University campus and managed to raise £110 to send to him. We also collected signatures for a petition calling for a fresh review of John’s case so that he can come back to Glasgow, where he belongs. Our campaigning and fundraising for John is ongoing – check out our events page to see some of the other things we have planned.

STAR works very closely with Unity, and so many STAR members (and their friends) have been turning out in their old clothes to help sort out and decorate their new charity shop. This has involved a very messy, but successful few weekends of painting, gluing carpet and moving furniture. Volunteers are still needed to finish this job so that the shop can be opened so if you find yourself with a spare few hours and feel like laying some carpet, let us know.

Finally, there was an urgent action recently when Nabeel, an asylum seeker involved with Unity, was threatened with eviction. Nabeel has chronic lung disease and has to sleep with a ventilator mask that requires plugging into the wall. Despite this, the UKBA attempted to evict him from his flat and leave him homeless.  Several members of STAR, along with people from Unity, went along to his flat and basically stood in front of his door so that they could not evict him before his doctor signed a statement saying that it would put his life at risk to have him deported. This was successful and Nabeel has had his financial support reinstated.

Welcome Freshers 2011/2012!!! August 30, 2011

Welcome to the University of Glasgow!

Well done for finding our page, we’re Glasgow University’s Student Action for Refugees group.

We will be meeting every Tuesday after term starts in the QMU and we already have lots of great stuff planned for this year.

If you’re interested in getting involved with our society then get in touch by email, Facebook or talk to one of us during Freshers Week. We’ll have a stall about campus and should be at the SRC’s Volunteering Fair on Thursday – full details to come.