Celebrating 4 years of the Shared Routes Project -

Today we celebrated 4 years of Shared Routes project, our volunteer training programme.

The Shared Routes Project is our ‘Peer Navigator’ programme, promoting the skills and attributes from within refugee and asylum seeker communities across Manchester, Tameside and Salford. It aims at training people from migrant background who want to become more engaged in community work. The training will prepare people to become ‘community peer navigators’ and help them to develop their skills and knowledge. Our training follows an asset-based development approach that means we focus on developing people’s strengths.

About 40 people attended, a mixture of our service users and partners and it was wonderful to get together to celebrate the achievements of our peer navigators and how the project helped them to rebuild their lives here. One of the highlights was listening to our peer navigators stories how the training helped them to find the right path for them and how volunteering helped them to move forward.

Read our Shared Routes Project Impact Report 2022 here

"The feedback I have received [from people who have done the programme] has been amazing. It has a positive impact on the mental health and wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers. It contributes to enhancing people’s confidence levels and self-esteem. It gives people knowledge and skills so they can have better life chances and an improved quality of life.

I did the Shared Routes course about three years ago. Then I didn’t like to speak with others as English is not my first language. People would make fun of me. That was the most important thing - for me to get more confidence. From the course I found that if I just speak they will love me and they will help me. I learnt a lot about other people on the course. I met other people, for example, two women from China. I helped them to learn English and make a new life in this country. I learnt that it’s not too late to start again at any age. I try to help other people especially refugees. If I see them in the street or somewhere where they can’t speak English, I will help them. I feel good by helping other people. Because of the course I started to speak and to go for volunteering. It was very great for me. I have volunteered for Cancer Help and will soon be starting anther volunteering role. I have learned to fight for something because I have the right. I can be part of the community now without any problem.

I did the Shared Routes course two years ago online during the Covid pandemic. The training gave me a lot of confidence. Then I volunteered with MRSN– making phone calls to people to check how they’re doing. It was a difficult time for us. I still talk to those ladies. Also I used to receive calls from MRSN to check on me. It was lovely – that meant a lot at that time. It also helped me with my mental health as I used to be alone in the house. Receiving the phone calls made me feel like someone is in my home and I’m connected to someone. Before I started at Shared Routes I was scared to talk on the phone in English as I didn’t understand what people say to me. I was fine face to face. In the pandemic everything changed to online or the phone. I had no choice but to speak to people in English. Now I understand what people say to me on the phone. I have improved my English a lot and can speak to anyone. That’s a great achievement for me.