Life Without Papers
Freelance photographer and writer Len Grant reflects on Life Without Papers, his blog commission from PHF’s Supported Option Initiative. The blog recently posted its final entry.
It was never going to be easy. Undocumented migrant families and young people are often described as the most vulnerable in the UK. And it would be my job, as a freelance photographer and writer, to highlight their daily struggles of survival in a country that was becoming increasingly hostile towards ‘illegal immigrants’.
In autumn last year I was commissioned by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to tell these stories as part of its Supported Options Initiative that was investigating ways of helping this group, particularly around accessibility to legal advice.
In early discussions with the Initiative’s Co-ordinator, Sarah Cutler, it was decided that the blog – short snippets of online stories – would be the preferred format. I could document a number of challenging lives as they unfolded and recount them on the internet. A bit like a soap opera series but this would be the real thing. I had recently completed a year-long story about a teenage mum from Manchester’s Moss Side and this strategy had worked well.
And so, by working with intermediaries – charities and support agencies who already had the trust of potential subjects – introductions were made.
Within weeks I had met a young mother we called Ruth who had been brought to the UK as a child and now at 25 and with a five-year-old daughter, she was still unknown to the authorities.
Later I was introduced to Sinan, a stateless Turkish Kurd who was in limbo, unable to be returned and yet unable to have his status regularised here. A life, like so many, on hold.
When I first heard Olatunde’s story I found it truly shocking. She and her four daughters fled domestic violence and the threat of female genital mutilation in Nigeria only to spend the next five years undocumented in a Manchester suburb. They stayed with whichever family would help and each day Olatunde, after dropping the girls off at school, would walk into town and beg for money. They are now officially asylum seekers and have different but no less difficult challenges to overcome.
Unlike a case study or journalistic report, I put myself squarely in the middle of these stories. I am there on behalf of the reader. What I see, they see. What I feel, hopefully the reader feels too. It’s an approach that requires a high level of trust and with that emerges a type of friendship, albeit an unbalanced one.
Days spent with my blog subjects have been unusual, often surreal. Helping Ruth move house for the fourth time in six months; arguing Sinan’s case with Turkish Consulate officials; dropping everything and helping Olatunde and her family salvage what they could after a house fire, (not of their making).
I’d often recount these experiences over the dinner table to our three teenagers and the contrast between our comfortable middle class lives and those of my blog subjects is never lost on me. It’s made me and, I am sure, our children, appreciate how lucky we are. And I have no doubt that readers of the blog experience the same.
Inequality nowadays is subtle: everyone would recognise the plight of the homeless person asking for change at the station, but few would appreciate that well-dressed Ruth making her way to her illegal job with the rest of the morning commuters will end up with less than £40 a week to support her and her five-year-old.
So Life Without Papers is nearly complete and it’s time for reflection and evaluation. What impact has the blog had? If the website visitor statistics and the number of awards won are indicators then yes, it has been a success.
Getting these stories re-told in conventional media – and therefore hitting a wider audience – has been more difficult. On the one hand, we have been selective in which media we approach, having to balance the desire to inform with the risk of blowing our subjects’ cover. On the other, media editors, like the general public, sadly have limited interest in immigrant stories. So the ‘compassionate converted’ become the main audience which, in itself, is not insignificant as the hope is they then take action by passing the word on.
My relationships with Ruth, Sinan and Olatunde will not end with the final blog entry. I will continue to see them all, pass on donations of money and clothes, and support them in their torturous journeys to getting regularised. I am sure I will continue to be ‘Uncle Len’ to Ruth’s daughter for some time yet!
Characteristically the Foundation has been much more than the commissioner of a blog project. Sarah, in particular, has supported me at every stage: directing me to research, making connections and providing invaluable advice. Everyone realises this is not an easy field of work and I am grateful for the opportunity to bring these lives to the fore.
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