This week, Local Welcome received some incredibly sad news that a friend of Local Welcome, Ahmed Sinno, had passed away.
Ahmed was a refugee leader at one of Local Welcome’s early groups in London, and made valuable contributions to the design of our cooking and eating ritual as a volunteer.
As a talented chef, Ahmed also designed and contributed some recipes for Local Welcome several years ago, including the Green Bean Stew which some of you may have cooked and enjoyed together before: ‣
Only a couple of months ago, Ahmed recorded an oral history interview with us in Newham, which was made into a short film, and published on our website only last week. You can watch his short film here on our website.
Ahmed is being missed greatly by those in the Local Welcome family who knew him. Sharing his knowledge and love of food was one of Ahmed’s many passions, so we hope that you’ll learn something new from watching his film, and enjoy cooking his Green Bean Stew together at many meals to come.
Following our offer of support and guidance in our last weeknotes, we’ve heard some more thoughts and concerns from you.
In particular, how we can work together to reassure that Local Welcome meals are spaces which people seeking sanctuary feel safe and confident attending, without mistaking us as being affiliated with the Home Office.
In addition, we’ve also been hearing from partners in the sector that increased fear of the Home Office is already impacting trust of, and access to, services.
Our first thought is that we should focus more on collaborating with known local partner refugee support organisations to help gain support in gathering sign ups for meals. For example, we had a good run of sign ups in Cardiff earlier this week, through working with a woman who has a trusted presence in Cardiff’s refugee support community.
As we approach our May meals, we’ll remain proactive in looking for ways to increase our support as LW’s central team, and we encourage you to keep speaking up if you have any concerns, or if you learn anything new.