Space To Care, Room To Heal

Writer Nichola Daunton discovers the healing power of nature and a shared meal with a group of refugees in a community garden in Islington.

Photography by Tami Aftab

Culpeper Community Garden is where Room to Heal began, and it is here, on a warm Friday in September, that its carefully cultivated community is seeking recovery. The COVID-19 pandemic meant that the charity, which works with refugees and asylum seekers who have experienced torture, had to leave the peaceful enclave of Culpeper and meet online.

Creating a virtual community was new to the staff at Room to Heal. Pre-pandemic, they met in person once a week for group therapy in East London, but during lockdown and beyond, these sessions moved to Zoom. For many of their members, often living in shared accommodation, finding privacy for these conversations was difficult. “We’ve had people having to join from quite unusual spaces,” says Suzie Grayburn, who co-facilitates one of the group therapy sessions at Room to Heal, but the perseverance has been worth it. “It was very powerful to see how quickly people connected over Zoom…There was a period during the first lockdown when we weren’t online yet, so I think people did feel incredibly isolated.”

Room to Heal was set up in 2007 by Mark Fish, a psychotherapist who had previously worked in conflict resolution in Northern Uganda. After returning to the UK, Mark began working with torture survivors. “Mark found that with some people, the individual therapeutic approach wasn’t really working, there was no shift happening,” says Elli Free, Room to Heal’s Director, who took over from Mark three years ago. “It was very much to do with their external environment, people being in limbo and not having any agency in their lives while they were waiting for their asylum applications to be processed…and he felt that there would be some benefit in bringing those people together to share their experiences.” Mark’s initial group decided they’d like to meet in a garden, and the relationship with the Culpeper Community Garden was born.

This sense of shared experience, whether through therapy or meeting at Culpeper, is at the heart of Room to Heal. “Room to Heal helped me open myself up when I didn’t want to be open. I was very shy, so being in the group really improved my wellbeing,” says Bernadette*, a Room to Heal member. “I feel more secure and hopeful in life because of how they welcomed me, made me feel safe and welcomed me like family.”

The emphasis on group work as opposed to individual therapy is one of the cornerstones of Room to Heal - though one-to-ones and individual casework are also provided. “There’s something powerful about a group of people coming together and realising that they’re not alone, not alone in facing the UK’s hostile system,” says Suzie.

This hostile system can be a source of re-traumatisation for many of those at Room to Heal, who, after fleeing torture and persecution, arrive in a country that is now seeking to criminalise them. The Nationality and Borders Bill, which passed its second reading in July 2021, is set to make it a criminal offence for refugees to “knowingly” enter the UK via illegal means, which goes against the principles laid out in the 1951 Refugee Convention. If the bill passes, border force patrols will have the power to “turn back” boats crossing the channel and “use force, if necessary.”

If refugees do manage to make it safely to the UK through the limited avenues the Home Office may now deem “legal”, the welcome they receive isn’t exactly warm. Unable to support themselves through work—it is illegal for asylum seekers to have a job—asylum seekers are forced to rely on state support of just £39.63 per week—that’s £5.64 a day. While GOV.UK states that most asylum claims are processed within six months, and many asylum seekers wait for two or three years for their claims to be assessed, with the pandemic only exacerbating the delays.

“People have to cope with the trauma and persecution that they experienced outside of the UK,” says Elli, "but it’s the double trauma that people experience when they come here and realise they’re not welcome, and their struggles are just carrying on in a different country.”

The work taking place at the Culpeper Community Garden acts as a balm to this. Wrapped up against the grey concrete of surrounding Islington, the protective trees, ivy and roses offer an alternative narrative, with the slowly changing seasons suggesting that life can and will change. Set up in 1982 by a local school teacher, the garden is now divided into over 50 allotment spaces for local residents who don’t have gardens and community groups like Room to Heal.

“Every Friday afternoon, I know we have a meeting here, and it’s a celebration really, laughing, making food and drink, tea or coffee. I think it is very good for me and all of them,” says Sayed, who has been a member of Room to Heal since its foundation.

The garden is a relaxed space for both staff and members, a place to share everyday conversations, joy and community spirit. The charity has a small plot of land where they grow chard, Jerusalem artichokes, and herbs used in communal cooking before the pandemic. “We used to go shopping with the chef of the day, which was basically one of the members who were keen to cook for up to 30 people. So we used to cook in the kitchen, and then we’d have a meal altogether,” says Camilla, a clinical administrator at the charity. While group cooking indoors may be some way off, the charity has begun alfresco dining and is having BBQs together.

The garden has also been used to plant commemorative trees, a space for remembering those lost, an essential part of the healing process. Room to Heal recognises that, like growth, the process of recovering from trauma can be a slow, life-long one, so their members can stay for as long as necessary and also return to the group lunches and gardening sessions once they have left the formal, therapeutic setting.

With the process of claiming asylum often long and fraught, it is rare for charities to support people right through their journey. Especially when funding is so precarious, both for the charity sector and those pursuing their cases. “Reducing legal aid for people who are applying for asylum has been counterproductive for everyone involved because it means that people cannot find solicitors to help them make their case for protection, and then they are maybe refused, and fresh claims have to be put in,” says Elli of the legal process.

Better quality decisions would benefit the whole of society too, not just each individual, “from what I’ve observed over many, many years, people do get to stay here. So, they can either stay and go through decades and decades of living in limbo and having no agency in their life and no training to be able to find work at the end of this. Or they can have access to good legal advice and better quality decisions could be made if they were funded properly… that would limit the harm to people so much.”

Sayed is living proof of how long a person can be immersed in the asylum system, “It was about eight or nine years that I didn’t have any status. I was always very nervous.” The support Sayed found at Room To Heal helped him through this difficult period, a feeling shared by fellow member Bernadette; “When I joined Room to Heal, I was feeling low. I didn’t want to move on with life - but I met with other people who had similar experiences,” says Bernadette. “They talked about a bakery. I didn’t have a skill for it, but they helped me to feel positive. I can’t work, but I did training for almost a year. I can only say good things about Room to Heal. We are family, brothers and sisters here.”

 *Some names have been changed to protect anonymity.

Room to Heal is reliant on donations to keep doing the work it does. If you are able to donate, you can do so here: https://www.justgiving.com/roomtoheal

Read the other stories in our FOOD edition.