Stories

  • ‘We sat in tearful silence, just holding hands across the table’

    Photo by Priscilla Du Preez, Unsplash I FIRST met Aisha at an English conversation class at an asylum hotel in Berkshire. A middle-aged woman from Sudan, it was her first time in the drop-in class, organised by a Care4Calais volunteer group. Aisha had been in the hotel for two weeks with her 16-year-old son after Read more

  • War leaves no one untouched

    Kurdish Iranian refugee and Exodus journalist Souran Soleimani reflects on the war between Iran and Israel Picture: Tasnim News Agency Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license I WAS born in a land where war wasn’t just a word. it was the weather. The sky spoke in sirens, the ground trembled with explosions, Read more

  • Understanding migration: Resilience, determination and hope in the face of adversity

    Understanding migration: Resilience, determination and hope in the face of adversity

    By Tamirat Astatkie MIGRATION, a global phenomenon affecting millions of individuals, has become an increasingly complex and compelling issue in recent years. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), approximately 281 million people, which accounts for roughly 3.6 per cent of the world’s population, currently reside outside their country of origin. Many Read more

  • Sanctuary scholars named in Big Issue’s top changemakers

    Sanctuary scholars named in Big Issue’s top changemakers

    By Helen Ball FIRST thing on a Monday morning earlier this year, some of the Exodus Team had the pleasure of meeting two sanctuary scholarship students from Warwick University who have been named on The Big Issue’s 100 Changemakers of 2024 List. The list celebrates the people and organisations who are creating positive change and Read more

  • Refugee reflections: we must never allow the cycle of kindness to be broken

    Refugee reflections: we must never allow the cycle of kindness to be broken

    These days, I sometimes feel a deep sense of sorrow and sadness and I cry in my loneliness, so hard that my shoulders are shaking, much like the day when two of my little students, Hiva and Bavān, lost their eyes and legs on the path to the rural school. They had stepped on a Read more

  • ‘You have a choice: live or die – you decide that you will live’

    ‘You have a choice: live or die – you decide that you will live’

    “THE militia came to my village at midnight. They all had guns, and I saw them shoot peo- ple. They shoot people for nothing. When I saw that I realised my life was nothing to them, that I was nothing. That’s why we had to leave.” John, the South Sudanese refugee on the left in Read more