Amir fell in love with a Kurdish woman. The Kurds are a minority ethnic group in Iran and are subject to a great deal of violence and discrimination. This forced Amir to run away from Iran to save his life. Luckily his case was well documented and he was quickly granted refugee status in the UK. Eventually Amir managed to reunite his whole family in a small village just south of Wakefield, in a housing association property.

Sadly, local youths began to harass and abuse Amir and his children. He called the police, but the youths were too young, or there was too little evidence. This goes on for a couple of months – the younger kids start trouble, and older ones waited to attack Amir if he tried to help his children. Eventually Amir was beaten so badly he ended up in hospital, and one of his attackers was imprisoned for six months. The attacks are then stepped up in retribution for this, and then when the man is released from prison it gets even worse.

The Police didn’t seem to be able to do anything (due to language difficulties the reasons for this are not entirely clear). The housing association said they had no better properties for the family to move to. The local authority’s Asylum Team were unable to help because their contract only allowed them to support people they also provided accommodation for. There were additional complications because Amir was a refugee but his wife and sons were officially asylum seekers. The family’s life was a nightmare, and nothing Amir did to try to help the situation made any difference for over a year.

Eventually Amir found RASA. We could speak both the family’s languages and understand the problems they were going through. We also already had some experience of racial harassment, though nothing quite as bad. We contacted NASS straight away, gave them some of the recent police crime reference numbers, and arranged for Amir’s wife and children to move to safe emergency accommodation straight away. The next day we went with Amir to the Homeless section of the Council and he was also accepted for emergency accommodation.

It took three months for the family to be reunited again, but RASA was there for them during all this time. We were able to find out what was happening, hurry things along, and keep Amir informed. Sometimes we helped out with other issues that came up along the way. Mostly we were just there for Amir, ready to stand up for him if he needed us – but this was a great relief and it is an important part of Rasa’s role for many people.

Now the whole family have refugee status and are living happily together in a Council House in another village near Wakefield. They no longer suffer racial harassment - for the first time in many years living in Iran and the UK.