The Arsenal Foundation has helped to fund the Baobab Centre, a non-residential therapeutic community that offers holistic support to young survivors of human rights abuses seeking refuge in the UK. Baobab director Sheila Melzak, who is 75 and was herself a refugee from eastern Europe, tells us about their work.
“I have always been interested in the strength and dilemmas of people who have been separated from their parents, communities and culture.
“When I finished a university degree in psychology, I ran a children’s home for many years in Hackney. I trained as a child and adolescent psychotherapist and worked in CAMHS community mental health services. I went to work at an organisation that worked with torture survivors which is now called Freedom from Torture.
“I worked there for almost 20 years with young people who were separated from their parents or those living with parents who were unable to care for them for various reasons. A group of us decided to set up a new organisation that could focus on the special needs of children and adolescents who came in the UK seeking asylum after experiences of human rights abuses and who were separated from their families. We set up this new organisation and it became a charity in 2010.
“The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile has a holistic approach with a multidisciplinary team that attends to the internal emotional needs and the external practical needs of vulnerable young people seeking asylum in the UK. Once young people gain refugee status they continue to have many practical problems accessing education, work, benefits and more in a culture that is very different to the culture where they grew up.
“The Baobab Centre offers individual and group psychotherapy and various group activities, and we operate as a community because we see that much of the therapeutic involvement comes from participation in community life. For example, we run annual retreats to the countryside and organise many day activities. We also hold a monthly community meeting where young people and staff share a meal together and can discuss issues to do with life in the UK, the situation in the world including conflicts and specific issues at Baobab.
“Our aim is that young people who have experienced violence and loss and many unpleasant changes in their lives are fortified in our transitional community so that they might thrive in the community of exile and contribute to community life.
“The staff and young people find exercise to be therapeutic in that it reduces tension and anxieties within their bodies. We’ve used The Arsenal Foundation money for our Hardship Fund, and specifically towards supporting the mental wellbeing of young refugees and asylum seekers through improving their access to sports and exercise activities. The funding enabled young people to access gym memberships and enabled us to contribute to destitutions funds – many young people go through periods of destitution.
“When many young people arrive in the UK their credibility is challenged, including their age. If the people assessing them don’t believe they are minors, they are placed in Home Office accommodation and given very little money to live on. All the young people who come to the centre suffer serious mental health issues and developmental difficulties.
“They enjoy and seem to flourish having exercise. They also all love watching football. In the past we’ve had some of our supporters take our young people to Arsenal and they love having the opportunity of seeing a real football match, and we are looking forward to a trip to Emirates Stadium that has been made possible thanks to this grant.
“We hope that their future involves building a new life and recovering from trauma. It’s our experience that if our young people are able to face the difficulties in their lives as well as celebrate the opportunities they have had and have in the present they will be best able to cope with the challenges of life in the future. We aim to help the young people address the impact of trauma, separation and loss and to build a meaningful life in the UK.”
For more information visit [baobabsurvivors.org](https://www.baobabsurvivors.org/).
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