'Stoke-on-Trent is a special area for refugees'

Charity supports 100s of families from 74 nationalities who now call city home

- Jon Bamber

HUNDREDS of asylum seekers and refugees came together to celebrate Refugee Week.

They have all received help, support and guidance from Asha North Staffordshire, a charity which supports refugees and asylum seekers.

The charity welcomes everyone seeking asylum and offers them the support and help they need.

The organisation believes asylum seekers and refugees should 'live safely, free from poverty, discrimination and exclusion, and be treated with compassion and respect'.

Chief executive of Asha, Godfrey Seminega, aged 59, of Berryhill, said: "We started it in 2004 as a community group to support refugees and asylum seekers. We became a charity in 2006.

"I came here as an asylum seeker from Rwanda in 2003. I went through a very traumatic experience in the asylum seeker system. I was begging for £1 on the street in London. I had been a public medical advisor in Rwanda. I was forced out because of political reasons.

"I was lucky because my case was straight-forward and I was granted refugee status in three weeks. I applied for a job to work in Stoke-on-Trent for the NHS Primary Care Trust as a project worker.