Community Support
The Sulha Alliance employs a Community Support Officer, who gives bespoke advice and organises community events.
We organise several community events to bring Afghan intepreters and the British public together. For example, on the 22nd of April of 2023, our Community Support Officer organised an event to celebrate the Eid festival for interpreters and their families who live in Swansea. The event was funded and supported by the Sulha Alliance and Manselton Community Centre. British guests from different organisations joined in the Afghan celebrations, enjoying home made cakes and other Afghan sweets, such as cookies, dates, and fruits together. Everyone really enjoyed it and we are grateful to the People Library, UID (Unity in Diversity), the Swansea council community coordinator, and all Afghan families who joined us. The connections and networks built during the celebration have already led to continued collaboration and support for future events.
The Sulha Alliance coordinates a peer-to-peer support network 'Sulha Network' for Afghan interpreters settled in the UK.
In the online Sulha Network group, both the earlier cohort of Afghan interpreters which was resettled around 2016-2017 under the Ex-Gratia Scheme and the more recent arrivals under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP) exchange advice and organise around common issues.
History of the Sulha Network
The Sulha Network was started in 2016 when Captain Ed Aitken met his former Interpreter (name withheld for security) in Manchester after he resettled as part of the Ex Gratia Scheme. It became apparent that the support given to the Afghan Interpreters in the UK was wholly inadequate. The resettled interpreters hoped the UK would be similar to the military family they had been part of, with values of respect and loyalty.
Sadly many of them found themselves struggling to find a sense of identity and place within British society, not helped by the Home Office allocating very limited case worker support through Local Authorities and a complete lack of interest or ownership from the Ministry of Defence. Many of them faced mental health problems due to their exposure to years of combat operations. Now the sense of abandonment far away from their traditional family support structures became too much.
A lack of communication from the Home Office meant the visa status of the newly arrived interpreters was often unrecognised by local authorities, the NHS, employers and even the JobCenter. They found themselves unable to establish themselves, unable find meaningful employment and unable to contribute to society in the way they wanted.
The Sulha Network was created by Ed and his interpreter as a self-help network, to give a sense of community and to create a unified voice around the issues the interpreters faced. It started, and remains, as a simple WhatsApp group where government policies and visa-application documents are shared; useful experiences and advice is given; and good news stories celebrated. It now hosts the majority of the Afghan Interpreter population in the UK and is an excellent source of information on the issues the interpreters are facing on the ground.
The significance of the group only increased in 2018 in the wake of the Windrush Scandal when Amber Rudd stepped down and Home Secretary Sajid Javid took her place. A well-timed letter to the Home Secretary, signed by all the members of the Sulha Network, with support from Larisa Brown at the Daily Mail, resulted in Javid using the Afghan Interpreters as his cause célèbre to launch his time in office.
The Sulha Network's Demands:
Javid conceded to two out of the three demands of the Sulha Network letter; that all Afghan interpreters should have automatic Indefinite Leave to Remain (rather than the 5-year limited visa they were given which excluded them from all but the most insecure jobs); and that the £2000 fee to convert their visas to ILR would be waived. Since these very public successes, the Sulha Network has appeared on BBC Radio 4 Today Programme and in numerous media pieces.
The third demand to reunify those who had wives and children in Afghanistan and now wanted to bring them to the UK would take another year of lobbying the Immigration Minister Caroline Noakes. Finally, in July 2019 a policy change was announced that Afghan interpreters could bring wives and children to join them in the UK. Sadly, the implementation of the policy is falling short with more than 120 children and spouses still waiting.
Transition to Civilian Life:
The Sulha Network has lobbied the MOD for greater support to the Afghan interpreters in the same way that the Ministry supports its own service men and women when they transition into civilian life as veterans. It has created initiatives to make Mental Health support more accessible to the community and it has worked alongside the Afghan and Central Asian Association to bring dozens of ex-interpreters to a Parliamentary Meeting in the Palace of Westminster.
