How Bradford will embrace Ukrainian refugees with warm hearts and cool heads – Dr Toby Howarth, Bishop of Bradford

Such costly offers echo other costly actions that we have seen over the last days and weeks. President Zelensky, his Ukrainian soldiers and other key workers could easily have fled Ukraine as many expected them to do. Instead they remain.

Ukrainian refugees deserve better than Boris Johnson and Priti Patel’s insincerity – Yorkshire Post Letters

Thousands of Russians who see through the lies are defying their government and risking up to 15 years in prison by taking part in anti-war demonstrations. Fifteen years in a Russian jail is a long time.

But I also remind myself that, in another way, this is not unusual. Speaking from Bradford, a city of sanctuary, the Ukrainians who we are preparing to welcome are only the latest group of traumatised people to come to our District.

The Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre at Huddersfield University tells the moving stories of those who found and those who provided shelter for Jews under Nazi occupation. We know, of course, people and their families who fled the Nazis and were welcomed and found new lives in Yorkshire.

At a vigil for peace in Ukraine, held at Bradford Cathedral recently, we heard heartbreaking stories from Bradfordian friends with often second or third generation Ukrainian roots. We also heard from a teenager born in a refugee camp to a Rohingya family fleeing the genocidal violence of the Burmese junta. We heard from a young person with roots in Kashmir.

We heard from a young Congolese woman who fled the war there, and who, just last Sunday, was honoured as a Canon of Bradford Cathedral. She has helped to set up the Millside Centre, a Bradford-based community project reaching out to some of the most vulnerable people in our city with joy, laughter and hope.

Yes, we all have connections, some stronger and some weaker, with people and countries around the world suffering war or famine. But what was so beautiful about what those and other young people shared with us at the vigil, was how they had the courage to channel their own stories of hurt and grief into support for others from different backgrounds.

As a Christian, I do not believe in a God of scarcity. My sympathy for a Ukrainian refugee does not dilute my sympathy for a Yemeni child growing up knowing only the sound of bombs.

As a wise friend of mine said to me at another Ukraine vigil last weekend: “I am a mother – I love my child with all my heart. I don’t worry that if I were to have another, that child would receive less love. Instead, I know that my heart would simply grow bigger.”

In Bradford, we have learned as a city that we receive refugees as assets to our communities. Yes, there are costs, but there are also huge benefits, not least to our economy and tax base (especially when refugees are allowed to work), to our entrepreneurial creativity and to our cultural life.

But we do need to welcome refugees, including from Ukraine, with cool heads as well as warm hearts. Jesus tells a story about a person who set out to build a tower but ran out of bricks.

Churches, mosques, Gurdwaras, temples and other community groups, in partnership with the council and experienced refugee support organisations are working hard to prepare for the arrival of Ukrainians in larger numbers.

We are aware that taking a family or an individual into our homes is not something that we or anyone should do out romantic idealism. It won’t help the refugee if I don’t have the capacity to go through with my promise after a few weeks.

We are making sure that our plans 
take safeguarding seriously, knowing 
that many who arrive in our communities will be traumatised and vulnerable.

We know that not only the refugees themselves, but also their hosts will need support, especially if things get difficult, and especially that we must not end up leaving traumatised refugees on their own in a house to work it out for themselves.

So, I was in a meeting this week with other leaders from the Anglican church across West Yorkshire and beyond seeking ways in which we can help 
and encourage our churches not just to host people, but to get alongside the hosts.

If I can’t take on a family or an individual for one entirely understandable reason or another, 
might I commit to cooking a meal for them once a week, or helping the family register with a GP, or take the children to school, or take them for a walk in the Dales?

There is a crisis here, but we are a resourceful people with a long history of stepping up. Let’s pray and work.

The Right Reverend Dr Toby Howarth is the Bishop of Bradford and chair of Bradford’s Stronger Communities Partnership.

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