By Sima, from Iran.

These days I receive text messages and phone calls from friends and members of community to check if I am doing OK. I live on my own and I don’t drive. Plus, I am an outgoing person with a busy schedule of back to back meetings during the day and visiting theatres in the evenings. So my life must be dull and depressing right now.

But I tell them I’m OK, and actually enjoying the quarantine life: I can now stop chasing
money for a bit and go back to be a writer and get better at cooking. Then I post pictures of the bread and soups I have made to impress them and make their mouth water. This one was my second try; not too bad.

A friend sent me a website called Quarantine Kitchen by a Tehran-based artist who draws portraits of her friends preparing new recipes, based on the stories they told her of their experiments under quarantine.

Iranian cuisine is famous for its richness and the sourness of its drinks and sauces. I have tried them on my British friends and it’s entertaining watching their nose curl up and their eyes rolling eyes as if they are being tortured.

Living in quarantine is pretty much like living as an asylum seeker. The difference is you don’t have money to indulge yourself in different cooking styles when you are seeking asylum and you can’t watch TV simply because you can’t afford the licence. If you are lucky enough to be recognised as a ‘legal asylum seeker’ by the government, you will receive £35 per week to survive. If you are not legal, you are not receiving anything. You will live on canned food donated by charities and sleep in the basement of a friend’s house or in a garage/ under a bridge. Tens  of thousands of people are living in this condition in the UK. Of course the same also applies to UK citizens, the many homeless people who are sleeping in shop doorways, on park benches and friends’ sofas. Or to those people on Universal Credit who are struggling to live.

So why should I complain? Compared to the old times, I live a luxury quarantine life right now. I have a laptop that I can put on my belly while writing as I lie down on my bed drinking my coffee with a piece of 75% chocolate. I actually had a small laptop during my asylum life which was gifted to me by a US friend who encourage me to write my story. I started writing my autobiography and this is how I became a creative writer. I remember I used to type 16 hours a day because nobody believed my story and I was called a liar by the Home Office and my case was turned down by an immigration judge for he thought it was not genuine and I was far too clever. ( I used to think judges make decisions based on evidence and facts,  not based on their thoughts? Maybe Iran is different)

Anyway, my daily routine is :

- Having a lie-in every single day cos the world goes on without me, I am not the centre of the universe. It’s better actually if we do absolutely nothing for a while because what we have done so far is damaging to our planet earth and killing animals. So better stay put.

- Checking on social media to see what friends have been up to, if they are doing all right. Sometimes writing apocalyptic stories on my Facebook to freak out people! The recent one was a dystopian future where Europeans are seeking asylum in Africa and the Middle East because many countries will have gone under water due to global warming (and Europeans definitely are not welcome in Africa and India and Iran)
Make breakfast and eat it without having to rush.

- Do a few hours work as I run a company and I manage social media and all the paper work! This is the only bad thing about quarantine life.

- Watching cooking channels on YouTube and choosing a new recipe for dinner. If I need ingredients, I go to the corner shop and if I can’t find them I just improvise. I can’t walk around looking for spices and veg and risk spreading the virus because I am too selfish to have a plain dinner. Adding a sour sauce will do the job.

- I make phone calls to my family in Iran to check if they are OK. The virus is spreading across the world and it seems that governments all over the world care about rich corporations not the people. There is nothing I can do except ask them to take care of themselves and help vulnerable people.
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- I spend evenings reading books, rewriting my play, and contemplating my art work and what I can do as an artist to raise awareness and to help the young generation to build a better future. We, the old generations, have messed up!  Maybe it’s a wake-up alarm. There is much to learn from a microscopic virus.
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We should use this pause to reflect on ourselves. Hopefully the world will definitely be a different place after this. 

In the last 48 hours RAPAR members who are destitute - no secure shelter, no money and no right to legal work - have been:

• Left, via a no recourse to public funds unit, with a severe and enduring chronic illness in a single room, with no access to any safe cooking space (they are cooking using their kettle) no cleaning products, no care support and no way of going outside because they are so infirm  they cannot negotiate stairs 

• Texted by the Home Office and told not to report to usual reporting centres.

• Emailed from its 'Asylum Operations' via at least one Local Authority 'Homelessness Directorate' to say: 

                         ...   "Send applications via post or email"

                         ... "We have decided to pause face to face substantive interviews"

without any guidance on how they are supposed to access computers to email or printers to print paperwork, or to pay for any of the above, or postage.   It's no surprise then that, just now, led by the Runnymede Trust, race equality and migrant rights organisations have begun to call for independent review into institutional racism in the Home Office.

​This is destitute RAPAR Member Jenny DaCosta from the Democratic Republic of Congo, this morning, on the steps of the Friends Meeting House, the site of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre.  

He accepted a small amount of cash from RAPAR because "Yesterday I had to speak with the court service to find out if my hearing is postponed to a later date, taking into account the period we are going through, to my great surprise I was invited to appear in court on the date initially planned because no change or modification is planned, the hearing will indeed take place.  So I had to contact the organisation ... ". 
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​After giving Jenny a small amount of cash this RAPAR volunteer drove out of the city centre and, while they were waiting at a red traffic light, photographed this homeless man near Piccadilly Station... 
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When is the State going to reach out to these vulnerable people and help them, and the people around them, to protect themselves and each other? It's called Public Health.   

• Suspend all detention and deportation processes
• Invite all undocumented or displaced or destitute people to come forward, without fear
• Identify empty buildings with capacity for creating self-contained units where homeless people can live, with local community support, now

 
Following the publication of our first response, which specifies how we are beginning to offer support, RAPAR is now calling upon the State to suspend all detention and deportation activities, including legal processes.  We also call upon the State to extend an invitation to all undocumented, displaced and destitute people, i.e. those most acutely vulnerable to COVID-19, to come forward for safe housing , without fear of being snatched or locked up, and so that they may contribute, openly, to making the population as safe as possible.
 
Obviously, no one will be able to act in their own - and everyone else’s - best interests if their basic needs are unmet.  RAPAR Chair of Trustees, Dr Rhetta Moran says:
 
“We are acutely aware of the risk COVID-19 poses both to our Members and to the wider population.  This is why we are reaching out in this way, right now.  Our 2010 position that questioned that Government’s ‘Big Society’ a decade ago is being borne out.  There is, hopefully, still time to act with compassion and wisdom.
 
At last night’s televised press conference, the Government insisted that social contact be minimised immediately and, at the same time, insisted that our schools remain open.  This is not rational.  It is physical contact that needs to be minimised, not social, educational, legal or political communication.  It is within our capacities to offer these resources to one another while minimising physical contact - let’s do the possible.”

Physical – but NOT social, emotional, legal and/or political - interaction should be at a minimum from now until the virus threat has passed.
 
We need to lead and act to protect all our Members, especially those with compromised immunities for any reason, older Members, volunteer Members who regularly interact with one another, paid Members and anyone else that we, as RAPAR Members, may be in contact with.
 
 
1.  Casework

This is the heart of our work.  From now on RAPAR members doing Casework will aim to do as much of that work remotely, using the phone and internet to communicate.  As we know, all our casework files are on Mothership and our best practice is to store our data, exclusively, within the Mothership intranet which is not accessible remotely.  However, in these current circumstances, with our commitment to minimising physical interaction and in order to continue casework, our Casework Leads will be taking full copies of casefiles on specific cases off site as needed, and distributing that work remotely, as necessary, with Members and Volunteers.  The overwhelming majority of our Members have phones/smartphones/i-pads and/or even access to computers so that joint casework may take place.  See section 3. Groupwork for step by step on how to set yourself up on zoom. 

Caseworkers may need to go to the office, periodically, See section 4. Using the Office Protocol to download/upload casework files so that they can access the information from home and maintain our Casework e-file in an up-to date form. 
 
2.  Members Supporting ‘Vulnerable’ Members and Their Networks

Do not come to the office unless it is essential. Accessing health care is already very difficult for people seeking asylum and destitute people with underlying health conditions are most at risk from the coronavirus. 
 
Do you, or any of your friends who are destitute, have any of the following?

• HEART problems that have caused you to see a doctor at any point in your life
• LUNG OR BREATHING problems, such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, cystic fibrosis, pleural effusion. (Existing lung problems can complicate your response to coronavirus.)
• Diabetes
• High Blood Pressure
• Cancer
• ANY conditions that involve your immune system, such as Crohns disease, HIV/AIDS or Lupus
• ANY conditions that involve the blood
• Mobility issues. Walking short distances, using stairs or leaving the house.
• Mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, agoraphobia, anorexia, bi-polar disorder, psychosis or schizophrenia (any mental health condition not listed)

Do you want to explore how we can work together to activate local support, where you are?

If yes, in the first instance, EMAIL rhetta.moran(at)rapar.org.uk or text 07776264646 (do not phone to speak with someone, text) with a short message saying:

• I want to support people locally
• I need support locally
• What the specific condition/problem is
• What local area you are usually based in/around
• If you/your friend/s have no access to shelter
• If you/your friends/s have no access to food
• Access to shelter but unsure how long for (e.g. staying on a friend’s sofa?)
• Access to food but unsure of how long for

This information will be shared with a group of experienced RAPAR members dedicating themselves to working out, together with you, how to delegate and access appropriate and local support with both our most Vulnerable Members and destitute/undocumented Members and Networks.
 
3.  Group Work

Individual Members, small and even larger RAPAR groups may not be able to meet physically but we can use whatsapp, facetime and zoom so that we can continue to see each other and be able to talk while seeing each other:

1. Download the zoom app onto your phone or go onto the zoom website on a laptop.

2. Sign up - you will need an email address and a name (you can use anyname). It will ask you to create a password.

3.  When you log in with your new account you will see several options:

'Schedule meeting' creates a link which you can share via whatsapp if you are planning a meeting in the future. For example you can schedule 'casework co-learning' zoom for 1pm Wednesday. It will create a link you can share via whatsapp or email.  The people who receive this link will be able to join your meeting. 
4. If you receive a link from someone else just click - 'join meeting'.
 
5.  In a Zoom meeting you can see a grid with everyone’s faces and you should be able to hear everyone. Sometimes this takes a bit of time and you need good wifi or mobile date connection. It is then possible to have a meeting as you would in person. It is useful to have a facilitator and to ask people to raise their hands when they want to speak because if two people speak at once it is very difficult to hear.  Happy Zooming!
 
4. Using the Office

Wherever possible, work should be done from home and meetings and group work conducted via WhatsApp or Zoom or by Phone. We do however need to check the post regularly.  The office will remain accessible to people who really need to use it, but we all need to follow some simple public health procedures.

​The office surfaces have been deep cleaned this morning (16th March).
From now on please follow these procedures:
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1. When you enter the building immediately go to the toilet - on your right in the entrance corridor - and wash your hands thoroughly using hot water and soap BEFORE entering the RAPAR office.
2. Use the sets of gloves and cleaning and disinfecting equipment that are at the entrance as you enter main office, near the kettle and in the little office. 
3. Make sure that door handles, light switches, keyboards, phones and ALL SURFACES USED, including the outside buzzer plate and outside door handles and locks  - have been both cleaned AND disinfected BEFORE YOU LEAVE, EVERYTIME.
4. Clean the kettle, teapot and utensils used and wipe down the chair arms with disinfectant.
5. The cups need washing thoroughly in water boiled from the kettle, before and after use, or people can take in their own.
6. Spray down the computers, keyboards, printer/scanner and mouse BEFORE YOU LEAVE, EVERYTIME.
7. Be extra careful in the toilet as it is used by other people as well as us and they may have been exposed to the virus.
8. The fridge has been cleaned and turned off.   Any milk for tea and coffee you bring in - take it home.

 
 
ON TUESDAY 17TH MARCH 2020, RAPAR WILL BE ISSUING A PUBLIC STATEMENT ABOUT WHAT WE CONSIDER TO BE THE BEST WAY TO REACT TO THE CORONAVIRUS SO THAT OUR MEMBERS AND THEIR NETWORKS CAN BE SAFE AND WELL.