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Volunteer stories |
 Today we hear about Rozina and her befriender Julia:
Rozina, her husband and two children, aged 4 and 7, came to the UK from Afghanistan and are living in a flat. Rozina’s English is limited but her husband has a good grasp of the language. They were allocated Julia as a befriender by Herts Welcomes Refugees to support them as they moved from the hotel to permanent accommodation and to settle into the community. Julia has been working with the family for about 18 months. Julia’s main focus is to help Rozina improve her English and she visits most weeks. While Julia helped enrol Rozina in college to learn beginner’s English, Rozina says she prefers the support from Julia at home. Julia has also helped with documents that they don’t understand such as those from the council, school and doctors. During this time Julia has helped support the family with getting the children into a nursery and a school near the family’s home. When the family first moved to their flat, the oldest child was placed in a school that was too far away to reach on foot. Because of the distance, the parents were not sending their son to school regularly. Julia worked with the family, the Education Department at the Council and the child was then moved to another school which was slightly closer to home. He attended this school for a few weeks and then fortunately a vacancy became available at the local school where he was offered a place. He has since been awarded a certificate for English by the head teacher at the new school and the youngest child has been awarded a certificate for good attendance. The oldest child’s English is very good and he helps his mother with the shopping. Both parents are very proud of their children. Rozina says of Julia, “she is very nice and very friendly. She is a big help with the children.” She also says “she likes that she and Julia go to the park and go out for coffee”. |
