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The feeding of the 5,000
Until a few weeks ago John Apollo relied for his survival on scraps of food he salvaged from rubbish bins and discarded takeaway food cartons on the streets of Leeds. Occasionally he would be forced to knock on the back doors of restaurants to beg for leftovers.
The rejected asylum seeker lived rough, sleeping sometimes in empty houses.
But John, 26, is not a typical rejected asylum seeker, because he has offered to go back to his country of origin.
The problem is that the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa won't let him in. Although he was born there, when he was two years old his elder sister took him to live with her in Nigeria.
He came to Britain from there in 2006. The Congolese authorities say he is Nigerian. The Nigerians say he is Congolese.
He left Nigeria because of racism. In today's Africa, with people fleeing one war-torn or hungry country for a more stable one, racism by one black group against another is a growing phenomenon.
Whatever the circumstances which led to his situation, John has to live with it, along with hundreds of other people in Leeds whose pleas for refuge have been rejected by the authorities.
For a few months John was given Section Four assistance – somewhere to stay and 35 a week in vouchers to feed and clothe himself, which was less than the lowest of any benefits payable to a British resident.
But when his plea for asylum was rejected, the authorities decided John was not making enough effort to get back to the Congo, or Nigeria. He was evicted and his allowance was stopped. That was when he ended up on the streets.
"I was feeding myself out of rubbish bins," he said. "I would force myself to beg. It was horrible."
His weight went down from around 11st to under eight stones.
John eventually got help from a charity set up in Leeds in 2003, PAFRAS – Positive Action For Refugees and Asylum Seekers. Initially the group's aim was to help individual asylum seekers fight their cases.
But workers say they had to divert resources to more immediate needs, like hunger.
In 2006 it opened a twice-weekly food kitchen in St Aidan's church hall in Harehills providing hot meals twice a week, plus small food parcels for those in direst need, such as mums with young children. All the food is donated, or bought with donated money.
In 2007 the numbers turning up each week doubled. Today the kitchen feeds more than 5,000 people a year, and the number is still rising.
John Burnett is one of the group's workers.
"The food parcels are things like tinned tomatoes, tinned fruit, rice," said John. "The type of meal depends on what comes in – salad, rice to bulk people out.
"For some of them the two meals are the only proper meals they get all week."
The number of people attending is now so great that there is not enough food to go round.
"Last month we had 500 people. Demand is outstripping the supply. Recently we ran out of food. That has never happened before. We just haven't got enough food to feed them all," said John.
"We are starting to see something new recently, where babies are being born malnourished because their mothers are destitute. There are children growing up in destitution."
John Apollo is still homeless – he sleeps at a friend's house – and surviving with the help of PAFRAS.
He says he would love to be working but isn't allowed and anyone employing him could find themselves in court facing a heavy fine.
"I've got talents," he said. "I'm a young man. I am just wasting my life. If I could go back to school – I want to learn, I want to help others. I want to give something back to society."
When he walks the streets, as he still does, he has a recurring thought.
"What do they want a person to do? I keep asking myself this every day. I have not got an answer."
PAFRAS is urgently requesting donations of food and money. Toiletries are needed – particularly women's sanitary products. Contact PAFRAS Manager Christine Majid on 0113 2484147 or via pafrasemail@yahoo.co.uk
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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