Give this hard working family a leg up over the wall

Hello good people,

The family I’m hoping you will help me to support is, by virtue of their foreign-ness, facing a wall of fees levied by our government and the Scottish University which offered Blessing a place on a course costing £14,000 for 9 months of study.

Blessing worked her socks off, brought her husband and 2 little children over to join her and, whilst studying, she managed on a minimum wage over the few months she had to save up the £14k for the cost of the course through sheer hard work.

She graduated in September 2024.

The student visa runs out in January 2025 and she is now working round the clock again to raise £12k needed for the Graduate visa to enable her family to continue their lives here. It’s either that or get sponsored to stay by an employer who is properly licensed to apply for sponsorship and certificate the employee- it’s a lengthy problematic procedure but it’s an option.

Blessing doesn’t have that option as her current employer is not licensed and time is running out.

They now face the very real threat of deportation back to Nigeria where the currency is inflating beyond all control, terrorist gangs randomly shoot residents to score political points and day to day living is really tough by our standards. As Blessing told me, ‘my life is easier here than it was back home’, and I know that having completed a 12hr shift at one care home, finishing at 8pm, she will take an Uber to a night shift job, also starting at 8pm through to 8am. She’ll change uniforms in the taxi and arrive a half hour late for work. It’s the only way to make the Impossible possible.

Will you help me to help her? The more of you that would just donate a fiver would be such a boost for her- it would all go in the pot towards the target sum. She cannot continue like this. She assures me, ‘It’s only for a time, Ma. It will get better one day. It’s just these next few years’, as she looks ahead a couple of years when she’ll need to find another £15k for the residence permits.

Yet they are the very kind of people we are relying on to shore up our creaking Healthcare systems.. they are the ones with the compassion and drive to work the long difficult hours required to make our country a nice place to live in. Foreigners have to pay through the nose if they want to enjoy the privilege of paying British taxes and reaping the benefits of their hard work.

i sometimes hear the old complaint, ‘ they’re pouring in here to take our houses, cash in on our benefits or welfare..they’re taking our jobs’. Well, this family is not in any of those largely mythical Media-created categories.

It’s heart wrenching watching them struggling so hard to make a healthy, normal life for themselves and their 2 little girls.

Despite their mind boggling efforts to earn a living here and pay the foreigner fees, they find the threshold, the top of the wall that divides us from them ever further out of achievable reach.

That’s why I’m asking for your help to raise £3,500 now as that’s how much of the visa costs the family is short in the immediate present time.

If there is a gush of generosity that takes us over the £3.5k target, donations could help the couple to pay for driving lessons costing around £400 per person to get them to a standard to pass a uk driving test. This would expand their choice of work from the single Care Home setting to individual private houses scattered around the city, housing vulnerable elderly people in need of hands-on assistance. Our Care system is on its knees. This couple are dying to contribute their taxes and hard work in to it.

There is even a local company recruiting now but, for the job to yield enough wages for this family, they would really need a driving licence. The time spent on public transport would severely diminish their potential earnings as it already is and cut their working hours way back. And THAT employer IS licensed to sponsor care workers… but Blessing is too late to apply there now. The deadline is too soon for her to get certificated in time.

The husband, who worked back home in an Insurance company in administration, has managed to get employed cleaning hotel kitchens. He can’t get enough hours to help with the fees- his wage barely covers their £1200 monthly rent, Council taxes, food, clothes, all the basics.

And of course there’s the 2 children, now of school age, to think of and work around, care for. How can they flourish with this level of financial stress around them?

Neither one of the couple has a British driving licence and so they are used to taking buses everywhere which adds on hours of travelling to their day, but at least they might get a little nap on the bus. Blessing has been so desperate to get to different places of work because of the approaching deadline, she will pay for taxis which eat into maybe 5 hours of her earnings.

When I met them last year about this time, they had no beds, no kitchenware, no chairs no carpets. For 3 winter months, study meant sitting on a cold floor, back against a cold wall, head down on an old laptop.

They slept on old polyester duvets on the floor. They were eating out of throw away plastic cartons, washing them in cold water and re-using them. A pair of jeans served as a bathroom rug. I was given a cup of water in a clean yogurt pot. Then Blessing needed to race out to work while the husband put his children to bed.

Their visas do not include access to any public funding. They can of course make use of the National Health Service- into which they pay through their taxes, and I am delighted to say that their now 5 year old poorly daughter seems to have merely suffered allergies all her life- allergies which were never picked up back home while she endured (undiagnosed), from baby-hood, 3 life threatening surgical operations

over 5 months, her mother in constant attendance in the hospital, sitting and sleeping on a hard plastic chair. For 5 months Mum endured life on the plastic chair without a break- she wouldn’t leave her baby as one after the other, babies, children tragically died around her.

The children love their school here. School places were offered after a 3 month wait and the family are so grateful.

I ask myself, What if one of them falls sick? There is no allowance in their scheme for any sort of hiccup like a day’s illness. Blessing can’t even afford to sleep these days though she does catch naps on the buses and during her work breaks.

She has taken on a gruelling routine, one that normally would bring ill health, possibly total collapse for some.

This family is a delightful one, so grateful, so appreciative of everything that’s done for them. It’s young people like these we want to warmly invite to our country: they pay their taxes and they enrich our communities. They give back at every opportunity because they know hardship and suffering themselves and so they have learnt empathy at a young age. This family would share their last morsel with a stranger; they have dived into their cupboards every time I’ve visited to help- eagerly thrusting a bag of crisps at me or a special can of drink, a packet of rice biscuits- possibly a main meal for them on hard days. And the woman has spoken so compassionately of the demented souls in her care at work- she has a genuine caring heart for them all.

Many many thanks for reading and for your kindness in advance! Even £12 of donation is going to decrease Blessing’s working hours by an hour or so- that’s an extra hour to sleep or cook dinner for her kids.

Happy Christmas to all and all good blessings in the New year!