Refugees and asylum seekers come together to clean up Salford

People seeking asylum and those from refugee backgrounds have teamed up with locals to carry out a Salford clean up.

The Salford clean up, introduced by Salford Forum for Refugees and People Seeking Asylum, was held along Langworthy Road.

Irfan Syed, chair of the forum, believes that the Salford clean up will give people the chance to integrate and socialise with one another.

He said: “The clean ups are the best way of actually getting people from different backgrounds altogether to work for the same cause and it gives people the chance to talk.

“The reason behind the clean up is we want to make Salford cleaner, greener and healthier as well as to help people to integrate.”

So far the forum has hosted two successful clean ups, where 30 to 40 members of the community volunteered to join forces with the people from the forum to help pick up litter off the city streets.

He also believes that by people doing something good for the community, it will help reduce the number of hate crimes.

He said: “Because when the community see people from different backgrounds come together to make the streets cleaner, it makes others want to get involved and people who would never normally talk to people from minority backgrounds start talking and they get to know the reasons why they are here.”

The City Mayor, Paul Dennett, attended the Salford clean up in order to support the local community.

He said: “ Events like this are really important, this is how you bring communities alive and spend time with each other and look after one another.

“For me, its making sure people from refugee backgrounds and people seeking asylum feel part of community. I’ll do all I can as the City Mayor through our equality strategy to make sure that they’re embedded within our community in the City of Salford and events like this helps demonstrate that.”

The group of volunteers responsible for restoring neighbourhood pride want to promote one message:

Irfan said: “The message is clear. We are for the community and we will do whatever is possible to make sure that our Salford is cleaner and greener and we live together as one big family.”