Last month, we came together with referral partners from across Greater Manchester to find connections, share learnings and build solidarity and power – as well as enjoy a delicious lunch provided by Growing Together Levenshulme cooks.  

In the morning, we heard from Maternity Action about their incredibly valuable service for pregnant women and new mothers with insecure immigration status.  

We then dived into how we can work together to combat destitution in GM, and which areas it’s realistic to prioritise to advance our vision of a society without destitution. There was a strong sense that we need to shift hostile narratives and focus on what we all share in common - and that the voices of those who’ve been forced into destitution need to be at the centre of this advocacy. 

The meeting took place just a few days after the government’s White Paper was launched and the Prime Minister’s speech about an ‘island of strangers’ (see GMIAU's write up on the White Paper if you haven’t already). Alongside the distress, anxiety and disgust at this latest hostility, we were humbled by the solidarity, care and hope shared by our partners in the room. The hostility manufactured by policy and language does its best to dehumanise, alienate, divide – to turn us into strangers. What we saw from our partners at the event was a refusal to allow this. We saw a commitment to building compassion, solidarity and friendship – to mobilising community as superpower against the ever-more hostile environment. 

Like many other Greater Manchester organisations, we signed Asylum Matters’ statement committing to building an island of solidarity and opposing the government’s hostile rhetoric. You can read more about the Greater Manchester response to the White Paper here.