After18 supports over 200 young people every year, from more than 28 countries. Each person’s experience of fleeing their country and starting a new life in Leicester is unique.
From escaping war, to navigating the UK’s asylum system, to getting to know a new city, here you can find some of those stories, as shared by our young people via different mediums online.
Journeys Festival
Journeys Festival
In 2021, young people from After18 participated in Journeys Festival International, an arts festival that took place over one day in Leicester, Manchester and Portsmouth. The young people used creative writing, photography and art to share their observations and responses to their city of Leicester. You can see their work here:
Habib received support from After18 to access higher education in 2014. He went on to win an Outstanding Individual Learner Award at the national Festival of Learning in 2017 and was also nominated to join the Becoming Adult project. Here he shares the story of his journey and experience of living in the UK. You can read more about Habib’s story in his book, The Doorman of Urozgan, available to purchase here.
As part of the ‘Becoming Adult’ project, which explored the impact of the UK’s asylum system on the lives of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, young people supported by After18 produced comedy sketches to demonstrate the challenges they experienced navigating the system.
Having already fled her native Sudan, Noura escaped war in Libya at the age of 16. She regularly attended our young women’s group before moving to Manchester to study. Here she talks about the experience of arriving in the UK and her hopes for the future.
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