‘That Fills Me with Hope – That Human to Human, We Can Find Connection, Understanding and Empathy’

Jasmin O’Hara founded the not-for-profit organisation Asylum Speakers to amplify the voices of refugees, tell their stories, and debunk misconceptions around migration. She spoke to Josiah Mortimer

Jasmin’s foster brother Mez with their mother, Oeda. Photo: Jasmin O’Hara

In the summer of 2015, Jasmin O’Hara’s brother was turning 18 and moving out. Their parents were worried about having no children at home any more and so they started looking into options to foster or adopt.

The couple realised there was a need for host families for unaccompanied minors arriving on the shores of Kent – some as young as seven – searching for sanctuary. Jasmin’s parents put their names forward.

It looked likely that Jasmin’s new sibling would be coming via the ‘Calais Jungle’, the makeshift refugee camp on the French coast. So Jasmin decided to go there. “That trip really changed the course of my life,” she told Byline Times.

It was the height of the Syrian civil war and many had fled the violence to Europe. But people from war-torn Sudan and Eritrea also filled the camp.

“The conditions people were living in in France were very shocking,” she said. “I didn’t realise we had informal refugee camps like that in Europe. But the most shocking thing was the difference between the media portrayal of the reasons why people were leaving and the people themselves – and the reality of the people I was meeting. Their stories were incredibly courageous.”

On her return to the UK, she posted on Facebook about what she had seen, and – almost as an afterthought – attached a fundraiser. She had soon raised £250,000, becoming JustGiving’s biggest crowdfunding campaign ever at the time.

“That was very unexpected and catapulted me into a world I didn’t know much about,” Jasmin recalled. She began distributing clothes and necessities to those in Calais. She had, in essence, become a non-profit organiser overnight.

Then, on a Friday in August 2015, her parents were officially accepted as foster parents.

By the Sunday, they received the phone call they had been waiting for – Kent social services said there was a boy, Meseret, from Eritrea at the Eurotunnel terminal who needed a family. He was 13 years old, didn’t speak English, and was in good health. Did they want to foster him?

Jasmin’s parents’ response was “this is who we’ve been waiting for”.

If you are not a subscriber to Byline Supplement, but have subscribed to Byline Times’ monthly print edition, you can read the rest of this article by logging on here:

Byline Supplement subscribers, please read on…