Community Citizenship - 27th May 08

Target group: Refugee/ Asylum seekers & New and emerging communities
Trainer: Michael Greenhalgh (external)
Facilitated by: BCoM
No. of attendees: 10

Citizenship in the Community – an awareness course ran for refugee/asylum seekers and new and emerging communities from Bolton at BCoM. The day looked at an overview of citizenship and what it means for that particular target group in terms of their identity, their rights, what it means to be British, the law here in England and issues in current communities they belong too. (See attached agenda)

The trainer delivered quite an intense day of topics looking at immigration acts and definitions and human rights which the participants found very useful and interesting.
An interactive group exercise looked at the challenges and issues today

The following were comments from the participants on the issues:

• Language barriers
• Getting help and the right information
• Benefits – what is available
• School, education for our children
• Getting use to new systems and procedures
• Being accepted in the community and respected
• Transport and driving in this country, not having a license.
• Safety, personal and your children's

Ways of overcoming these issues were then discussed with possible solutions and help they could get locally.
The afternoon session was focused on Law and Justice, Power and politics and what this means dot the different individuals. How law protects you and what rights you have. Again the participants found this very useful and informative.

Participants Comments from evaluation forms:

Two items that people found most interesting:

“Human Rights Act and changes that occurred between 1948 – 2002”

“The 1948 declaration of Human rights”

“Difference between citizens and communities”

“About being a British citizen”