Second homes and new opportunities

Tonight, I attended the launch of Refugee Week tonight at the Tron. I've attended every year since I was elected, and really enjoy celebrating the contribution those coming to Scotland make to our society. It's important to take the time to celebrate, as well as protest when things go wrong. The theme this year is Home, chiming with the year of Homecoming.

There were speeches by the head of the Scottish Refugee Council and Alex Neil, Minister for Communities and Housing. There was a reading by a wonderful poet, Iyad Hayatleh, who spoke movingly in Arabic and English. There was a snippet from the play Home Sweet Home, and a musical and dance performance by Maryhill Integration Network.

The speech which brought tears to my eyes was made by Amal Azzudin, one of the Glasgow Girls from Drumchapel High who stood up against dawn raids. What moved me was that she spoke about the Scotland I want to see, the experience I wish people coming to this country to have. She's been living in Scotland for ten years, and has seen a great deal in that time. Amal spoke about how her life had changed, how different her life had been if she wasn't here, and about the sense of hope that children of asylum seekers and refugees now have; she said that the places they had come from was their past - Scotland was their future.

The Scotland I believe in is welcoming. It's about learning from each other, and building together. It might sound corny, but I was glad to hear it said out loud at a public event, by a non-political figure I have a huge amount of respect for. I want all citizens of Scotland to feel that Scotland can be like this: make time to go to an event this week. Enjoy.

YSI - making a difference

It's taken me a while to get round to blogging about this, but I was chuffed to the gutties on Friday to see that the new SNP Government had taken a YSI proposal on board.

The YSI submitted a resolution to the SNP’s National Council in June to ask that the new SNP Government to do all they could to resolve the unfair practice of charging the children of asylum seekers full overseas fees to study at Scottish Universities. We don't believe that, if you've gone through your higher education in Scotland, worked hard and passed your exams, that you should be denied the same opportunity for further education as your classmates. Bailie David McDonald spoke passionately on the subject, and the resolution was passed by acclaim.

Lots of very worthy resolutions get passed by acclaim. In the past, the SNP in the Parliament only had limited means to bring these ideas to fruition; now, things have clearly changed. I'm delighted that David, who has in the past brought other resolutions on asylum seekers and dawn raids to Conference and National Council, has seen something tangible in return for his commitment. But I'm even more over the moon that we in Scotland have taken this radical, egalitarian step. It's the right thing to do, and we did it. Hopefully, moves on dawn raids and detention will follow soon.


The YSI resolution to SNP National Council read as follows:

Council instructs SNP ministers to encourage Scottish Universities to afford children of asylum seekers the same rights to university education as other Scots and to bring to an end a system of discrimination which sees the children of asylum seekers who have gone through the Scottish Secondary school system unable to take their education to the next level.