Citizenship

Shardae is a bright girl who moved to the UK as a child at the age of six with her mother. Moving from Jamaica at such a young age, Shardae has grown up between British and Jamaican culture, with England providing her the home she has lived in for the past 18 years. Living a life filled with ups and downs, without always a bed for the night or a meal for dinner, Shardae managed to persevere through the darker times and found herself a deeply intelligent, positive and hardworking individual. 

For many years, Shardae was unable to continue onto higher education as it was not allowed by her visa status. To try to enroll in schools, she entered writing competitions and despite achieving runner up, didn’t manage to get herself the scholarship she needed in order to study.   When the law regarding visa status on this changed, however, she immediately enrolled and began studying at one of the top universities in the country. A credit entirely owed to herself. Despite issues with securing her student loan, Shardae continued to study with no funding for the first six months, a challenge she was exceeding at until the tragic loss of her mother two years ago. 

Shardae had been a caregiver to her mother when she had been ill with cancer and had worried about going to university despite her mum getting the all clear. For Shardae to have to deal with a sudden and, of course, deeply upsetting, loss like this whilst studying, to then have to go to Jamaica, meet family she barely knew and miss so much school was of course incredibly difficult for her. After missing school, she managed to come back and get the grades she needed to progress with her university course, despite the immense amount of pressure she had been under. 

The idea to me that Shardae would now lose all this hard work, that all the perseverance and integrity she has had to put into getting an education in this country and creating and maintaining a life here now with no blood relatives is heartbreaking. 

Shardae is a wonderful, loving girl who has managed to create a life for herself without any of the tools most of us have. I would hate to see her have to start again in a country she can barely call her home because of her currently being in a position of financial difficulty. 

Shardae and I have investigated all legal avenues possible, and have only found one solution and that is to apply for an indefinite leave to remain and then go onto apply for citizenship. This way Shardae will be able to continue her studies and make the best of them in the country that offered them to her and that she has grown up in. 

Any donation, no matter how small will be met with endless thanks and will be used to help a young woman get a better start to the next stage of her life.