Christians on Oldham are attempting to live on £6.50 for food and £3.50 for transport for one week to highlight the plight of asylum seekers in the UK as part of the nationwide Endurance Challenge.
When an asylum seeker's case is refused, the Home Office allows them two weeks' notice to leave their accommodation, at which time their £37 weekly support is stopped.
Oldham Unity, which is supported by local residents including church members, provides food weekly, which refused asylum-seekers can select to the value of £6.50. The Red Cross provides £3.50 for bus fares. Throughout the UK, people are choosing any week in Lent, the Christian fast season, but most of the Oldhamers participating are choosing the week beginning on Monday 10 March.
The heart of the issue is the lack of adequate legal support. Refused asylum seekers usually feel that they have good grounds for their asylum claim but that they have been poorly represented. Many prefer a life of destitution in the UK to what they fear will happen to them if they return to their home country.
Some of those taking part in the Endurance Challenge will aim to live on the same diet as the spinners of Oldham during the cotton famine of the 1860s. During the American Civil War the Union blockaded the Confederate shipping so that little cotton arrived in Lancashire, reducing spinners and weavers to a diet of oatmeal, tea and nettles. But some of them even wrote letters of support to President Abraham Lincoln in his struggle on behalf of the slaves, a great source of inspiration to all taking part in the Endurance Challenge.
Nationally, at least 100 people have taken part in the Endurance Challenge so far this year.
Mr Andrew Halstead, lay Minister in the Oldham Methodist Circuit, took part in February along with his wife and three teenage daughters. From this experience they have learnt to halve their grocery bill in ordinary weeks.
Those who are taking part in the challenge by living on the same as an asylum seeker will donate their saved cash for the week to Oldham Unity, for refused asylum-seekers. Others are welcome to do so - 'Oldham Unity', c/o Oldham TUC, PO Box 392, Oldham OL1 1WY.
