In the fourth part of our series highlighting the work of Scottish Episcopal Church partners, this month we focus on Scottish Faiths Action for Refugees.

Every year, the Church in Society Committee invites grant applications from organisations working on a variety of issues in Scottish society, and includes projects from the local, such as providing school uniforms for a local primary school, to the national, such as a third sector coalition combating climate change.

Scottish Faiths Action for Refugees (SFAR) is a multi-faith partnership project, hosted by the Church of Scotland, which seeks to co-ordinate and promote action by faith communities in Scotland to support asylum seekers and refugees.

The Scottish Episcopal Church has been involved with SFAR since it was established in November 2015, with active representation from Joan Lyon and Nick Bowry on the SFAR Co-ordination Group. SFAR is the main avenue for the SEC’s work with refugees and for refugee, migration and asylum seeker issues, and it receives Church in Society funding annually.

In 2020, before lockdown, SFAR was involved in two major events, in Glasgow on 29 February at St Rollox Church of Scotland, Sighthill and in Edinburgh on 14 March at Central Baptist Church.

The St Rollox Event was organised particularly with Glasgow Churches in mind; Glasgow is a major asylum dispersal centre and churches and communities have considerable experience of work with asylum seekers and refugees.

The Edinburgh event was called Sanctuary in Scotland and was organised with ACTS and CTBI. The conference explored theology and practice of churches’ work with refugees and was the key Scotland event for CTBI’s roll-out of the Church of Sanctuary initiative.

Other initiatives SFAR has been involved in include work around interfaith refugee integration in Edinburgh through the Weekend Club programme, plus the delivery of the New Scots Integration Programme (NSIP), a joint project with the Scottish Refugee Council, WEA Scotland and Bridges Programme to support refugee integration, part funded by the European Union.

NSIP work has included a series of awareness raising activities plus the piloting of a holiday hosting programme for refugees, where churches and church members welcome refugees living in another part of Scotland for a homestay respite visit.

Before lockdown, other key objectives were to:

• Take action relating to the attempted eviction of asylum seekers by SERCO and supported the ‘No Evictions’ campaign.
• Support and connect with partner organisations internationally, including in Calais, search and rescue in the Med., faith-based groups supporting refugees in Syria and Lebanon, and calls for religious freedom in countries where it is under threat
• Supporting the resettlement of refugees into Scotland, especially the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, including additional places via the sponsorship scheme, and learning more about the replacement scheme called the Global Resettlement Scheme.

Inevitably, lockdown affected a lot of the SFAR planning, with staff furloughed or redeployed during the spring and summer. SFAR was able to hold a final Weekend Club event in August before the project end. The NSIP awareness raising has continued, in the autumn moving to online presentations. Plans for refugee holidays had to be cancelled.

Two new resources were also produced over the last year. The first is as part of NSIP, called Sanctuary in Scotland – information for faith groups on refugee issues.

Printed copies are available here.

The second is called God With Us and is an ecumenical anthology of worship resources: prayers, bible studies, songs, youth activities etc. on the theme of refugees and migration.

Also, a joint publication with Christian Aid Scotland ‘Becoming Human Together, continues to be available.

Today, the work of SFAR is as relevant as ever, as the Nationality and Borders Bill makes its way through Parliament and objections are raised to the Government’s New Plan for Immigration.

The Government’s response to Consultation on the New Plan for Immigration was published recently, and it said: “The responses sent into the Government consultation also show that around three quarters of those who responded said they opposed many of the policies set out in the New Plan for Immigration. A similar view was also taken by those with direct experience of the asylum system. Having considered the findings from the consultation, the Government recognises that building a system that is fair but firm will require tough decisions, some of which may be unpopular with certain individuals and/or groups.”

In this knowledge, SFAR continues to highlight the need for “a more humane approach” to immigration and encourages people to sign up to the Together With Refugees Coalition.