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OBX Connects: Technology as a tool for resistance in the UK’s immigration system
25 July @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
July’s OBX Connects is about how technology can be as a tool for upliftment, resistance and resilience.
Founder and CEO Rossana Leal : Refugee Buddy Project
We will hear from the Refugee Buddy Project, a refugee and migrant-led charity based in Hastings supporting people from refugee backgrounds with a buddy programme, advocacy, and financial and emotional support. The Refugee Buddy Project leads on Refugee Week in Hastings. Founder and CEO Rossana Leal will talk about the important work of the project and also about the campaign against immigration detention centres and in particular centres like Northeye in Bexhill, an ex-prison site, where the Home Office is proposing to set up a 1200 bed centre. This would be the largest detention centre in the UK.
Every year 28,000 people are held in immigration detention, while they wait to find out if they will be deported from the UK. These are prison-like places, where people are detained for administrative purposes, they have not been found guilty of a crime and they don’t know how long they will be there for. The UK is the only country in the UK which practises indefinite detention.
Lamin Joof: a musician, a chef and a trustee at Hear Me Out
Lamin Joof is a musician, a chef and a trustee at music charity Hear Me Out. Hear Me Out runs music workshops, gigs and radio stations in immigration detention centres and runs bands on the ‘outside’ platforming musicians who met whilst they were in detention and tracks written in detention centres. Lamin has been incarcerated in 3 immigration detention centres in the UK, which is where he met Hear Me Out. He is now lead singer of the Hear Me Out band. Lamin will speak about his experiences in immigration detention, and about how music technologies helped him to cope. He will also talk about projects he has been involved in following his release from immigration detention where technology has been used as a means of amplification, awareness raising, connection and solidarity.
Presentations will be followed by a panel discussion.
For more information check out:
https://www.therefugeebuddyproject.org
https://hearmeoutmusic.org.uk/?p=1&m=p&v=d&s=lamin-joof