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Reset sat down with Mohammad to discuss his life in the UK after living here for three years. Mohammad reflects on what makes Community Sponsorship effective, the importance of language learning, and why he remains positive despite negative rhetoric around immigration.
How are you? How is life in the UK now that you have been here for 3 years?
Absolutely, I’m so happy! Everything is very good.
My wife is so happy, and my children – my three daughters – are very happy because the school is just five minutes from home, and they all go to the same school. I’m so happy that they go to school and come back home together.
Your English is great! How have you been learning? Are you still going to classes or learning at home?
I use YouTube a lot. I also have English people next door who help me as well. I go and practice a lot with them!
What do you think has been the most helpful thing with improving your English?
There were only English speakers around me where we lived first in the UK. Also, the main thing that helped me improve more was working and getting a job. Just practicing speaking. Friends always speak with me and teach me. And I like this language. I’m so happy and it’s good for me.
Why is learning English so important to you?
Because I like the UK and want to be a part of the community here and integrate fully and succeed. The language is the main thing for that. If a person wants to be successful in this country, of course they have to love the language and learn it in order to be able to integrate into society here and overcome all the difficult things.
At the start, I was always having to ask for help, and I made a lot of mistakes that affected me sometimes. I’d rather be more independent, especially since I made lots of mistakes at the start because of the language barrier. That’s why I’m really keen to learn English.
Do you feel integrated in the UK? Does it feel like “a home” to you?
Yeah, I feel like that since day one!
Why do you think you feel that way?
Obviously, the main reason is the hardship we’ve been through – fleeing to Lebanon, being asylum seekers in Lebanon. When we arrived here in the UK, the minute we arrived, we saw how people treated us nicely. Everything was better for us – education, health, accommodation, the safety that we feel, the smile that we saw on the faces of all the people that supported us. It made us feel like actually the UK was our home and we had been away and come back!
What about your wife and your daughters? Do they feel at home as well in the UK?
Yes, my daughters enjoy it here very much. My wife also passed her theory and Life in the UK test – she did it before me! She’s also watching a lot of English lessons. All of us, we are very happy and we feel it’s home.
What do you think has been essential to your integration?
For me, it’s the people. The minute we arrived, how people supported us, how they treated us. The best thing I’ve seen in this country is that. And we haven’t faced any racist person or discrimination since we came which is a blessing. Also, I started working after being here for four months and this also helped.
I feel like I’m the same as anyone else. That’s the best thing in this country – I have rights like anyone else here. I’ve never had any conflicts with anyone who told me that I’m a stranger or that I have fewer rights.
There’s been a lot of negative rhetoric around immigration in the news lately. Has that affected you or how you feel about being here?
Generally speaking, I’m a positive person. I don’t look to the negative sides of things. I’m more optimistic than pessimistic. I do hear about it, but I don’t know what to say about it because I don’t react much with the news.
The Government recently said they want to put more focus on Community Sponsorship. How do you feel about this?
I would support that 100%. For me, Community Sponsorship is the best programme to get a refugee here to the UK. When we compare our situation to other people who came through the council or other ways, we were more comfortable and things were better for us.
People who come through other programmes – for example, through the council – they are more dependent on the council. They’re expecting them to do everything for them. While with Community Sponsorship, they are trying to teach you how to become independent as soon as you can.
Also, I like the approach of having a second family. When you come with a group, you feel like you have a family here already. What I like the most about our group is whatever we’re facing or when we’re panicking about something, they always manage to calm us down. They keep saying, “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” And this was a great thing for me.
What do you wish more people knew about refugee resettlement?
The best thing about Community Sponsorship is that we had 18 people, almost, in the group to help us. They knew about our journey and what we were going through and they were explaining to the people around us about our situation. So people had an awareness of why we came here.
We know there are people that do not come through safe and regular routes and are sometimes doing illegal things. It’s affecting us. But in every society, in every country, there are bad people. Maybe 2% are bad people but it doesn’t represent the other 98%. That’s just one point that we hope will be made clear. If it appears in the media that a bad person did something, that doesn’t represent all of us.
Looking back, what do you think made a difference in your experience?
I think for me the main thing is having the mindset that I have to succeed. I have to be part of this community, be positive, and not feel embarrassed to make mistakes. You have to have the aim to learn the language and be part of the community. And then take the steps to do that.
I am always happy to share my experience with other people, or people who are about to come. Share what has happened, the mistakes that we made and how we succeeded in some stuff, so they can learn from this.
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