As project manager at a Red Cross youth befriending service for unaccompanied minors in Croydon, Golding is on the front line when it comes to caring for vulnerable young people in our society.
"When you speak to them after they've just arrived in the country, they can be quite despondent about what's going on," says Golding. "But two or three months down the line, when they've been housed and they reflect on their experiences, it doesn't seem so bad."
This is despite the fact that the young asylum seekers are aware of the negative publicity they attract in some quarters of the press. A recent article in the Daily Mail about an HIV-positive Somalian man seeking asylum, who had reportedly infected a couple of people, "generated a lot of discussion at the project about how dangerous the press can be," reveals Golding. The young people were angry about the negative stereotyping, especially when a small apology hidden in the paper a couple of days later admitted the man was not even from Somalia.
People in authority can also send out mixed messages. Golding tells how the police visited the project one evening to warn the young people not to walk home alone after a couple of refugee boys were beaten up. They followed this advice only to be stopped by another policeman dealing with reports of a gang hanging around the shops.
The project counters public misconceptions by training local young people as peer befrienders. "Since we started, we haven't had to advertise for volunteers," says Golding. Word of mouth between friends has produced a steady stream of volunteers from local schools. The commitment is so great that young people who have left school to go to college or university come back and help in the holidays.
Golding says that one of the hardest parts of his job is not being able to advocate on behalf of the young people, as the Red Cross has a strict policy of remaining politically neutral. Requests to deal with appeals to the Home Office in relation to rejected asylum applications must be referred to other agencies.
"Young people's applications for asylum or refugee status are not processed until their 18th birthday," he explains. This can be unsettling for them and hard for Golding.
"When they come to the project, they are usually on quite a low but, as the weeks go on, you see them really get themselves sorted out. Applying for asylum can take them back to how they felt before they arrived at the project."
Golding will not comment on whether any of the young people he sees are forced to work illegally, although he admits that some "do talk to me about how hard it is to survive on the money they have". One way the project helps them cope is by teaching life skills, such as cooking a nutritious meal on a low budget.
Golding has a philosophical attitude to the hardships young refugees and asylum seekers endure. It is clear that first, and foremost, he sees them as young people who need help settling into a strange country.
"The most rewarding part is people's happiness," he says. "It's the basic stuff, like explaining to a 17-year-old girl, who has never been bowling, how to hold a bowling ball."
And unlike some groups of young people Golding has worked with, the unaccompanied minors never complain, they are just "happy and grateful to be out for an evening," he says.
BACKGROUND
Offering skills and support
- Unaccompanied minors are people under the age of 18 who arrive in the UK without an adult to seek asylum or refugee status
- Destitution by Design, a report published by the Mayor of London, says 10,000 asylum seekers in London will be pushed into destitution every year as a result of Government policy
- Croydon's Red Cross project targets unaccompanied 16- to 18-year-old refugees and asylum seekers. It develops their personal skills through a peer befriending scheme and helps them access a range of support services
- Jay Golding has worked at the Croydon project for a year and a half. He is a qualified youth worker.
