Trevor Holme is a client of Chesterton House, and a volunteer with Loughborough Town of Sanctuary. He told us about a special concert taking place in Loughborough’s Emmanuel Church on 1st June, when acclaimed international pianist Margaret Fingerhut will perform to help raise awareness of refugee needs as well as to collect funds for Loughborough Town of Sanctuary. You can find out more information about the concert below, however first we spoke to Trevor to find out more about this valuable service.
Trevor on Loughborough Town of Sanctuary:
“Our main aim is to provide a welcome and hospitality to the asylum seekers that are required to report at the Home Office Immigration Reporting Centre in Loughborough.
Thousands of people are required to travel from across the East Midlands to the Loughborough Centre throughout the year, sometimes fortnightly or even weekly.
Most are fleeing war, persecution and torture. Many of these people have left everything they ever had – their families, friends, work and more - to try to obtain some security and stability in their lives.
Our charity is here to make their visit as welcoming as it can be. Many of the visitors are traumatised by their experiences and confused by a new bureaucracy. After all, how bad must things have been for them to abandon everything precious to them to make this change.
You meet people from all over the world through the Loughborough Town of Sanctuary, and subsequently hear of their distressing histories and life stories. These people are just looking for a safe place to be, and it really puts things into perspective.
We get great feedback from our service users, not only from the physical provisions we offer, but for presence of a friendly face when they’re at their lowest.”
Trevor on Margaret Fingerhut:
“Margaret Fingerhut is a world-renowned pianist and is often on BBC Radio 3. I think she is fantastic. To have someone of that magnitude performing in Loughborough is a real privilege, and she is truly a remarkable person for doing this to help our cause.”
Event Details:
Through music and words, Margaret tells the story of some of the many composers who were refugees because of war or persecution, or who migrated for their work. Her programme includes Chopin, Grieg, Handel, Haydn, Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff, and she has specially commissioned a new piece by Arian, the Kurdish Syrian composer who wrote the Refugee National Anthem for the 2016 Olympics.
Date: Saturday 1st June
Time: 7:00 pm
Address: Emmanuel Church, Forest Road, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3NW
Ticket cost: £12
Tickets available: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/far-from-the-home-i-love-a-special-concert-by-margaret-fingerhut-piano-tickets-56268183652
As you can see this is certainly a worthwhile cause. People risk their lives attempting to escape from war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and many more, and the cost of your ticket will help to improve their lives now that they have arrived in the UK.
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