Philip Lawrence Awards Network

A support group of young asylum seekers, refugees and British people challenging prejudice.

Who we are

85 young people

Where we're based

Loughborough, Leicestershire

When we started

2002

How we started

The project began life in 2002 when Andrew Lake, a local Youth Worker, met a single young man from Kosovo who told him of the difficulties he was facing adapting to life in the UK.

Our work

Dreamers brings together young people from Britain, Iraq, Bangladesh, Somali, Albania, Kosovo and Afghanistan to support each other by sharing their experiences and problems. This helps to counter isolation, racism and lack of understanding in the community. Members meet each week to foster respect, have their say, and provide and get advice on the issues that affect them. The project also visits schools and community events, and published a cartoon book.

Future plans

Today, the project supports 120 young people - that's 35 more people since 2005 when we won our Philip Lawrence Award and we're growing more and more. Some of us wrote to Gordon Brown about the conflict in Afghanistan and he invited us to Whitehall to talk to his policy advisors.

The Award did help to give us credibility and the other thing that's happened is that we've been talking to housing charities about developing new services and support for young asylum seekers. We now have five houses for three to four young people to live with a support worker. This creates a family unit to help the young people establish themselves, and learn the basics of living in the UK. Andy Reed MP is still in touch with the group and held a workshop recently with 90 young people in the youth centre to hear our views and thoughts. We also got an outstanding grade from Ofsted in our last inspection.
(19 year old member of Dreamers Ali Mohamadi, quoted in the Philp Lawrence Awards Magazine 2008)

Project website

http://www.thejitty.com/clubs/dreamers.html

Every problem I have, I now know where to go and sort it out. I never wanted to talk; now I talk with people from different parts of the world – Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, etc. Together we are stronger and our opinions do matter.

Din, 16, member of Dreamers