I spent 12 hours in an Essex migrant welcome centre – this is what I learned ...Middle East

On the top floor of my local shopping arcade in Southend-On-Sea, between a secondhand phone outlet and a martial arts school, is a migrant welcome centre. Spread across three retail units, the charity Welcome To The UK offers support to people from overseas in everything from English language tuition to CV workshops, interview preparedness, housing assistance, cooking classes, and understanding bin collection (the bins are complicated in our town).

The UK is grappling with what a post-Brexit immigration system should look like. The government is desperate to reduce small boat Channel crossings and public feeling is divided: a poll by YouGov conducted in August found 45 per cent of British people would support admitting no more migrants and ask many already here to leave.

Southend is in Essex, a historically right-leaning county. I grew up here in the 1990s when it was synonymous with the ‘Basildon man’ – the Conservative demographic who helped Thatcher secure victory throughout the 1980s. Then in the 00s, it became a heartland of BNP membership.

In 2022, when I returned to live here as an adult, the right-wing views remained. Nigel Farage was elected as Clacton MP in 2024. His party, Reform UK – who propose abolishing the right to apply for permanent settlement after five years, and bar anyone other than British citizens from accessing welfare – gained three seats in by-elections across the county. While the Bell Hotel in Epping became a flashpoint for protest and St George’s flags were put up near my house.

So I was surprised to find Welcome To The UK – a public-facing organisation with no veiled name or ambiguous signage, just proudly welcoming migrants. On a Tuesday in early December, I went to spend the day with those who run it – and those who use it.

‘I wanted to keep my ambition – I’ve never claimed benefits’

The founder is 40-year-old Albanian Amarilda Sinani (nicknamed Ilda). In 2012, she moved to England from the Balkans. She was in her late 20s and had fallen in love with her husband; an Albanian who’d become a British citizen after studying here and setting up a construction company. “England was very hard in the beginning,” she tells me over hot berry tea. “In Albania I owned my house, I was an Italian teacher, I was close to my parents, the weather was good.”

She couldn’t speak English but was determined to not rely on her husband. “I wanted to keep my ambition,” she says. Ilda has never claimed a penny of benefits in the UK. After having her first baby (she now has two children) things became really hard – she couldn’t speak to the health visitor without her husband translating. She started going to a local children’s centre just to get out of the house and loved it so much she’d stay from open till close.

Inspired by the centre, she spoke to a friend about a provision for those with English as a second language: the seed for Welcome to the UK was planted.

In 2014, Ilda began an informal friendship group (she was so pleased with her name on the leaflets that she sent a photo to her parents: “I wanted them to be proud”). It grew in popularity. By 2019, it was an official charity.

Today, there are 1,700 people on their database, from 73 nationalities across three sites in Essex: Southend, Grays, and a small hub in Basildon [the funding means Basildon is currently only for Ukrainians].

The latest ONS data, as of 27 November, shows that this year 898,000 people arrived in the UK, while 693,000 left – meaning there was a net increase of 204,000 (a 69 per cent decrease over 12 months). And there were 110,000 asylum applications, according to the Home Office. In 2025, 40,029 people crossed by small boat from France. Nearly all those who do this claim asylum. The most common countries of origin are Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan and Somalia.

Although teaching English is a priority, the charity isn’t just about language. “Helping these people live with dignity means learning the language, as well as understanding the UK,” explains Ilda. It’s about filling the gaps in provision from other services; helping them to integrate, to follow rules and cultural etiquette.

For example, how to know the difference between 999 and 111, how to book a blood test, or what a postcode means. How to fill out a form or pick a school for your child. What is the 11 Plus exam? And the rules about things like rubbish collection. “Otherwise, if I put my bins out wrong then my neighbours are judging me. I would like to be able to respect the rules,” says Ilda.

At a mid-week lunchtime conversation club, the crowd is almost exclusively women (and one man, from Poland, who likes to write science fiction). Ilda says more women use the service than men as they’re less likely to be working.

Julia, 33, from Sudan, is talking to Ukrainians Tatiana and Liudmyla. The three women – all mothers who’ve fled war with their children – have had different experiences of the UK.

Julia left Sudan – where fighting has killed 150,000 and displaced 12m – via Egypt with her young child. They had to wait two years in North Africa while paperwork was done to reunite them with her husband in the UK, sleeping on the streets. Julia lost touch with family in her homeland (she is unsure if they are alive).

When they got to Southend, the family were placed in a hostel. Now they’re in a small studio with a kitchenette and Julia is thrilled to have a roof over their heads. When we talk about the NHS, she says people in the UK are so lucky to have such a system.

Meanwhile, Liudmyla from Ukraine, who has been here on a family visa since Putin’s invasion in 2022, has struggled to find a private landlord who will rent to her. She is unable to get much work because of her limited English, and she hurt her back doing a cleaning job, so can’t afford to furnish her flat. [When the government launched the emergency Homes For Ukraine scheme in 2022, Southend Council asked for Ilda’s help implementing it].

Fiti, a 31-year-old woman from Eritrea – where the UN Human Rights Council has expressed concern about human rights abuses – says so far her UK experience has been positive. She has been here for three months and her English is already excellent. Fiti and Arancha, a journalist from Spain, who has been in the UK for six years, spend some time discussing the phrase ‘a shoulder to cry on’.

Another woman from Bangladesh is excited to hear that next week’s club will be themed around Christmas traditions. (When I walk past a week later I see they are doing a nativity).

Ilda and her members are aware of the rhetoric around migrants in Britain today. In September, around 40 people attended a demonstration in Southend High Street to “celebrate British flags and heritage”. St George’s Flags lined many of the arterial roads and groups painted roundabouts with red crosses.

Ilda says they never closed during the protests: “The police said to stay open, so we did. You can see it as bravery but we didn’t want to let them win.”

Ilda says some members were upset. She felt responsible for them – one night she couldn’t sleep, worried. “I decided to make a video of our members speaking different languages, and post it on a local news site, but the next day there were 600 racist comments. I have a strong immune system and it doesn’t bother me but my members don’t all have that [thick skin]”.

On other occasions, people have verbally abused those inside the shop. “People have shouted things like ‘you support migrants, we don’t want you here’”. Ilda has tried to invite them in for tea, but they refuse. “It makes you uncomfortable but we carry on, we know we are trying to fit in,” she says. “Migrants come because they have a dream and are trying to keep that dream alive.”

Recently, she claims Reform councilors made an (unannounced) visit to the Basildon hub. “They asked what we do and we told them we help Ukrainians there, and that seemed fine…”

Ilda says anyone in Southend from overseas, whatever the circumstances, will be offered help by her charity. “Are illegal people in the UK? Yes. Is it my job to protect the borders or change the system? Unfortunately not. For me, people of all nationalities are the same. They are here now. We have the same problems. You could be my neighbour or my son’s friend, we need to support you”.

At first they didn’t talk politics in class. “We were worried it would create debate and anger but now it is going on for a long time, this is reality so rather than hiding it, we’re talking about it,” says Ilda.

‘We’ve become a meaner, small-minded country’

The Skylark hotel in neighbouring Rochford – adjacent to Southend airport and a few miles from Welcome To The UK – has been housing asylum seekers since 2022 (there are around 36,000 people in asylum hotels currently in 120 of 361 council areas). In the summer, Southend Reform councillor Tony Cox demanded it be shut down. Owen Cartey, of Southend Conservatives, also started a petition to “make sure that [the] government cannot bus in strangers from our shores and put our security, trust, and solidarity at risk”. (It was signed by 123 people).

“We have people coming here from Skylark – they don’t know what is going to happen to them,” says Ilda. “One of our volunteers has been living there for two years, he is an IT expert at home and his wife is a journalist but in Skylark they can’t work, or do anything [while their application is processed], so he comes here to volunteer”.

At another table Abdul, an employment assistant, is helping people with career advice and uploading CVs to job hunt websites. As I sit down, he is finishing with a Syrian refugee who has received his UK driving licence and wants to apply for delivery driver jobs.

Earlier, he was working with a female architect from Iran, who cannot find a job because she has no UK experience. He compares the situation to an Afghan bone surgeon he knows with 20 years experience in trauma medicine, assisting the British army, who is now stuck at home trying to learn English. “He could provide so much,” says Abdul.

Abdul has been trying to devise a roadmap to make it easier for such talent to be used by the NHS – but there are challenges. “The main ones are language, some employers worrying about being fined if they employ someone by mistake, and negative sentiment in the media and public makes it feel worse”.

All four of the ESOL teachers I spoke to – Sue Diver, Philip Gill, David Yallop and Liza Wiles – are teachers of retirement age, locals keen to make migrants feel welcome and give their time and skill to do so.

“I have had to justify to people why I come and volunteer here,” says Sue. “But these people seem to want to go back in time, when we can’t. We’ve all got to live together so it seems a no-brainer. The sooner they can get people into work, everybody benefits.”

Philip, who spent years living in Russia and Egypt working for the British Council, goes further. “We’ve become a meaner, small-minded country. With small boats everyone stereotypes, but they only see the negatives”.

Ilda is also keen for the public to understand the true stories about migrants coming to Britain. “I respect the country, I work hard, and still I’m always called a ‘migrant’,” she says. “I think everyone who comes here, they are heroes”.

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