Bus Pass Fund Pilot Project
This winter RST is working with the Glasgow Destitution Network on a pilot project to provide destitute asylum seekers who need to travel over two miles to a vital meeting with a day bus pass.
The people we will support have no access to any Government or other support apart from charity food parcels and the help that friends can provide. They are people whose asylum claims have been refused but who are unable to return home for a wide variety of reasons including those who are trying to appeal the negative decision and those who the Government cannot return home because there is no safe route to send them home by.
From November 2011 to February 2012 day bus passes will be provided to people who have no access to any other form of support and who need to travel over two miles to attend solicitor's appointments, medical appointments, classes, or other important meetings, or who need to report to UK Border Agency.
As we cannot provide for all those who need the passes, priority will be given to those with additional vulnerabilities such as mental or physical health problems.
We will be supporting people like:
Maiba* from Zimbabwe who has lived for 16 months in Glasgow with no cash. She suffers from severe back pain. The successful outcome of her asylum case depends on her attending solicitors appointments and regularly reporting to the UK Border Agency - so she is forced to walk 10 mile round trips, leaving her flat at 9am for an appointment at 1pm and getting back home at 6pm. She does this in all weather, in serious pain and often on an empty stomach.
Yusuf from Somalia who has been living with no access to cash support for five months while he waits for his appeal to be considered. He needs to travel to report to UKBA, to visit his solicitors and to get to college to study English. He has to walk everywhere. His college has been unable to help him with travel costs, so he had to stop his classes. Since then he has found himself increasingly isolated, depressed and frustrated:
Ahmad from Kuwait, who came to the UK in 2000 and is still waiting for his claim to be resolved. He has severe mental health problems and urgently needs to attend weekly hospital checkups and pharmacy visits to pick up his medication. He has suffered racist assaults in the past and this, in addition to his extremely fragile mental health, makes him terrified of walking in the streets for even short distances. Ahmad lives five miles away from the hospital and pharmacy, but he has no way of paying for travel and relies on friends to help him.
To trial this scheme we will be offering 100 day bus passes a month through the winter. We will be reviewing the project in January to assess demand and funding for the scheme.
In the meantime, we hope that it will make the winter months more bearable for people who have been left with almost nothing.
Donate a bus pass: to give £4 to our bus pass fund text FARE04 4 to 70070
