The United Reformed Church

Church leaders got to work to help create a  'Sanctuary Garden' at the RHS Cardiff Flower Show.  The garden with a message was created by WRB Churches Together, looking to bring to the attention of show visitors the complicated issues surrounding asylum seekers in the UK.

WRB Churches Together Spokesperson Gill Peace describes the Sanctuary as a garden with a mission.  ‘Refugees are an important part of the church and we want to celebrate their courage as well as highlight the difficulties they experience as they seek sanctuary in Wales.’
The garden planting symbolises the dangers and hardships from which those seeking sanctuary have fled, the spiral stonework shows the difficult path they have travelled to reach a place of safety and the cobbles indicate that despite the hope for safety the reality may not be that easy. 

Archbishop Dr Barry Morgan said,  "This fantastic symbolic garden should be kept as a living reminder to us all.  As a civilised society we have to act with compassion and humanity to those who look to us for help. There is a tendency in Britain to see asylum seekers as pariahs and to resent them being here. But in reality these are people in desperate need and we have a moral obligation to help them and to give them sanctuary where we can." 

Wales Synod Moderator, Rev Peter Noble, got his hands dirty working with other church leaders to help create this garden.  He writes: 'The conception and creation of this garden represents a clear statement about the sort of community we see represented in the Christian, and other, traditions. Deliberately creating an economic underclass of people is bad enough, but any policy of coercion aimed at making destitute those who had fled from real danger to their very lives, among people of whom they have asked for sanctuary in order that they will give up and leave the safety of our country has something of the callous and inhumane about it. It seems to me this is contrary to the Good News that Christians understand about our experience of God welcoming, indeed embracing the stranger among us and I certainly hope that the sort of society Wales seeks to be contests this sort of policy. Those churches who together have conceived and made this bold garden are to be congratulated for their imaginative way of bringing this issue, and particularly these people, to our attention. That it needs to be created itself reflects something worrying about the sort of community being shaped by unjust policies such as these.’

Alan Thornton from Church Action on Poverty says,  "The churches in Cardiff are sowing seeds  of hope with this garden.  Britain has a long history of being a place of safety for those fleeing persecution.  Unfortunately UK Government policy forces many seeking or refused asylum into the shadowy existence of destitution.  The churches believe that to treat anyone so inhumanely is morally wrong."
• Exclusive interviews with people from Zimbabwe, Congo, Pakistan and other African countries who have sought sanctuary in Wales available
Contacts:  Gill Peace  (WRB Churches Together)  02920612425 or 0787 5525083
Alan Thornton  ( Church Action on Poverty, media)   0773 667 3246

Notes
1. RHS Spring Flower Show Bute Park, Cardiff Castle, 17 – 19 April 2009. http://www.rhs.org.uk/whatson/shows/cardiff2009/gardens/roberthughes.asp
2. Whitchurch, Rhiwbina and Birchgrove Churches Together (WRB Churches Together) is a group of 11 churches in the North of Cardiff, which includes Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Church in Wales, Presbyterian and United Reformed churches. Represented by: Rev Peter Noble – Synod Moderator for Wales, United Reformed Church; Rev Phil Dunning Chair WRB Churches Together; Rev Irfan John – Methodist Church; Archbishop Dr Barry Morgan, Church in Wales.
3. Church Action on Poverty is an ecumenical Christian charity, supported by all the main Christian churches, dedicated to campaigning for lasting solutions to UK poverty. www.church-poverty.org.uk   The Living Ghosts Campaign seeks to change UK policy concerning the destitution of those people whose claim for asylum has been rejected.
4. The landscaper, Paul Melvin, is from Cardiff. http://landscape-garden.co.uk/
5. The designer is Robert Hughes  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
6. Cardiff is working towards becoming a City of Sanctuary.From the Congo to Cardiff Flower Show: how a refugee is helping to create Sanctuary Garden

 Among those fleeing war torn eastern Congo is a young woman who sought sanctuary in Wales.  Her experience has helped shape the design of a special Sanctuary Garden at the RHS Cardiff Flower Show (17 – 19 April).  The garden, which shows the extraordinary difficulties refugees go through to get to and survive in Wales, is being created by WRB Churches Together, who are looking to bring to the attention of show visitors the complicated issues surrounding asylum seekers in the UK.

This young Congolese woman, who doesn’t want to be identified, fears for her life if she returns to the Congo and she has been forced into destitution by UK Government policy. For months her only income was through prostitution.  She and her small son now live on £5 per day of supermarket vouchers, coping with the daily threat of forced return to the Congo.

“The Sanctuary is a garden with a mission, “ says Fenella Bowden, Secretary for WRB Churches. “The plight of asylum seekers is one of the areas in which churches are working together to bring relief to those who need our help and support locally.” Churches Together have been working with the Church Action on Poverty ‘Living Ghosts ‘ campaign to change the UK Government policy on the destitution and denial of health care for refused asylum seekers.

Designer, Robert Hughes, wove the experiences of asylum seekers into the garden. The garden early spiky planting symbolises the dangers and hardships from which those seeking sanctuary have fled.  The spiral stonework shows the difficult path they have travelled to reach a place of safety and the cobbles indicate that despite the hope for safety, the reality may not be that easy.  The stark dead white tree symbolises the wasted lives of those who are given no place to flourish.

Alan Thornton from Church Action on Poverty says, ’ The churches in Cardiff are sowing seeds  of hope with this garden.  Britain has a long history of being a place of safety for those fleeing persecution.  We believe that allowing them to help themselves, and society, through paid work would be in keeping with the command of Jesus to offer a 'welcome to strangers' (Matthew 25).

Madagascar: Into the danger zone
When CWM general secretary Rev Dr Des van der Water and Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa general secretary Rev Dr Jerry Pillay boarded a plane to Madagascar on a special trip to support the CWM member church in the country’s capital – they knew they were in for a bumpy ride. http://www.cwmission.org/features/madagascar-into-the-danger-zone

The following statement was received on Thursday 19th March from the officers of the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar.

Since then we have learnt that the Reverend Lala Rasendrahasina is now in hiding after an arrest warrant was issued. Your prayers are requested.

A Statement by the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar

Reverend Lala Rasendrahasina, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar was physically assaulted, arrested and abused by a mob and some members of the military on Tuesday 17th March 2009.

This happened on the premises of the Roman Catholic Church during a ceremony, attended by the main political stakeholders, including the envoy of the United Nations and other church leaders of the National Council of Churches.

Reverend Rasendrahasina was detained and abused in a military camp. He was released