In the Mirror’s brand new YouTube series ‘Island of Strangers’, we visit an extraordinary project called Refugees Rock – supporting a community that came under attack during last year’s riots
Last weekend, as the Labour faithful began gathering from across Britain in Liverpool for their annual conference, our team took the train under the Mersey to Birkenhead. At the inspirational, co-operatively owned venue Future Yard, which is helping shape regeneration in the area, we showed a film from our ‘Island of Strangers’ series to the community that helped us make it.
It was an emotional moment for all of us. Over the last few months, myself and colleagues Claire Donnelly and John Domokos have been working with the people behind an extraordinary project called Refugees Rock – that began when a Liverpool climbing wall opened up free climbing sessions to local asylum and sanctuary seekers.
At a time when asylum hotels and services supporting refugees have been under direct attack from the Far Right and other protesters, the solidarity and kindness shown at the Climbing Hangar – where refugees are assigned ‘Boulder Buddies’ – is a breath of fresh air. “Coming to a new country and a new city is not easy,” 21-year-old Ali, one of the climbers who was forced to flee Iran, told us. “You feel like you are on a desert island.” Watching him change from a shy, almost silent shadow to a young man sharing laughter with his boulder buddy Sev Domela tells its own story.
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Yet while millions of people try to hold our country together, there are those determined to violently divide us. Yesterday’s attack on the Heaton Park synagogue in north Manchester, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, is an attack on us all. While we can’t yet know the motives of attacker Jihad Al-Shamie, it may be another attempt to drive fear and hatred, in a successfully multi-faith and multicultural area – home to large Jewish and Muslim communities – where the ties of tolerance are hard fought for.
The area’s Labour MP Graham Stringer immediately called it an attempt to “damage our very tolerant city… and damage inter-faith and inter-community relationships.” At the other end of the M62, Merseyside understands the forces of division as well as anyone. It’s home to Southport, where disinformation following the terrible murder of three little girls began a disinformation spree that led to violent disorder. And to Knowsley, which saw one of the very first attacks on asylum hotels in February 2023, where a police van was set on fire.
But it’s also the place where something else incredible happened, that spoke about a different Britain. Just two miles from the ACC conference centre, in Toxteth, is an old Victorian presbytery which acts as a hub for the local refugee community. On August 5th last year, Asylum Link Merseyside had to board up its windows after becoming the focus of Far-Right protesters. Many of the people who attend Refugees Rock, in our film, also use Asylum Link. They had nothing to do with the murders 20 miles away, but they became the focus of public anger all the same.
As the co-founder of Refugees Rock, Emma Leaper told us: “People we know were spat at, called horrible names. Somebody from Refugees Rock was attacked on London Road.” Even as staff were boarding up the windows, locking the doors and trying to secure records inside the building, they looked out and saw something incredible – thousands of people converging on the building. Not with flaming torches or hate-filled chants, but with placards declaring love and support. “Thousands of people came together in the city and actually came to protect the building the night that the fascists were going to come and attack us,” Emma says. “I think there is more love, not hate, in this city.”
Manchester too, has repeatedly shown its resilience to division. In the hours following the horrific Manchester Arena attack in 2017, locals were quick to highlight Muslim taxi drivers giving free lifts, Sikh temples offering food and beds, and people of every faith giving blood in the aftermath. A day later, many thousands of Mancunians gathered at a peace vigil.
The Lord Mayor of Manchester, Eddy Newman called on the crowds to “defy the terrorists by working together to create cohesive, diverse communities that are stronger together.” Adding: “We are the many, they are the few.” Too often, lately, we have allowed a small minority of people – both here and abroad – to loudly define who we are as a country. In the wake of yesterday’s attack, expect them to grow louder.
For those who fight to bring communities together, it can feel like setback after setback, which is why we created ‘Island of Strangers’ – in an attempt to show the good that is happening in our communities. These films are for the people who came out after the riots and swept up broken glass with quiet dignity. They are the people who check in on their neighbours, and do the hard yards to bring people together. For us, making the film about climbing became a metaphor for how our country overcomes division.
In bouldering, routes across rockfaces are known as ‘problems’. There are many ways to get to the top of an indoor climbing wall or piece of rock. “They’re called problems because they are problems to solve,” Sev, who at 25 years old, is already one of the best boulderers in the country, explained to us. “Sometimes you have to spend a long time looking at the different handholds and puzzling out a sequence between them.” Ali says in the film that he thinks all problems in bouldering have a solution. “You just have to find it,” he says. “It’s just like life.”
Sev and Ali, whose wisdom and warmth are at the heart of our film, both joined Refugees Rock at the same time. Sev had been climbing since he was 12, for 18 years. Ali had never climbed, but had a deep love of mountains from his childhood where his family would get out into high peaks above his city whenever possible. For someone trapped with his traumatic memories in an asylum hotel, and later in a cramped bedsit, the freedom of climbing is almost inestimable.
Our film, in the end, is about a lost young man who had to leave his family behind, and who felt as if he were trapped on a desert island, finding a new home. In the film, Ali says: “I want to say to the Scouse people – I don’t like you Liverpool, I adore you.” But it is also about a friendship between two people, at a time when sometimes it feels like friendship is all we have. As we all fight in the aftermath of yet more violence to keep hope alive, we hope our films act as beacons for communities crossing difficult terrain. Climbing shows us that even the most difficult problems have a solution if we work together – even if we must fall again and again to get there.
Our ‘Island of Strangers’ films are being released every Friday on our YouTube channel Mirror Originals. The Liverpool film is here.