Lindah: Sitting at home, bored, and now an unconditional offer to study Law!
I’ve been volunteering with ISCRE and Suffolk Law Centre since 19th March 2018. Right now, I am still waiting for the outcome on my asylum case. Before starting volunteering, I was doing nothing. I was sitting at home and bored. So, I called Suffolk Refugee Support, and said to them, “I need to do something with my time – I don’t care really what you ask me to do, but I need to get out of the house! I wake up in the morning, and I go out jogging, I hoover the house, I wash up dishes…, but I need something that gives me a little bit more focus!” She said she’d see what she could find for me and that she’d get back to me. I emailed her back and said “I’m coming into town tomorrow, and I’m going to come and see you!” Before she could even get back to me, 10am the next day, I was there! At my appointment with the advisor, I told her that I had done a diploma in Law and that in the future when everything had stabilised and I wanted to pick that up again. But right then, I wanted to do anything that would use my skills and give me some contact with people. They had a few ideas, which sounded OK, but then they suggested ISCRE, and I thought, yes! So I completed the volunteer application form and sent it off. I hadn’t heard back when I walked past the office, and thought “I’ll go in”, so I did. I met Sumaiyah and had a chat with Letha, and she asked me if I wanted to start that day! I had something to do, so I said, “I can’t today, but I can tomorrow,” which was a day that Letha doesn’t work, so instead I started on the next Monday – March 19th. After too long doing nothing, everything happened really quickly.
I help Letha with Tackling Discrimination in the East, by filing, doing admin, uploading cases onto the system. Today I have been trying to call clients for feedback on the advice they received from us, after we have closed their case. It is quite a challenge to get hold of people – you have to keep trying. The best thing about volunteering here is the people – everyone is approachable, which is a good thing. I have applied to the University of East Anglia to do a Law degree, and they have given me an unconditional offer. Initially, they said I would need to take further courses to bring me up to the required standard before I could get an interview, and they said that my grades were equivalent to BBB, and that A grades were needed to get a place. Then I told them that I was volunteering at Suffolk Law Centre, and they became really interested. They gave me an interview, and then told me I had an unconditional place – I was so happy!
