Blog

Blogs by Juan Camilo

Candidates for Mayor of London share their views and proposals on migration and integration
Juan Camilo April 30, 2012
So what are the main candidates for Mayor of London proposing and committing to with regards to migrants and their communities a couple of days before the election? This is what they have told MRN.

This Thursday Londoners will go to the polls to elect who will be their Mayor for the next four years. In early April MRN launched a Manifesto on Integration and Migration produced in collaboration with several of our members and followers. We invited the four leading campaigns to a public meeting with migrant and refugee community organisations and asked the candidates to respond to the manifesto. Three of them, Boris Johnson (PDF), Ken Livingstone (PDF) and Jenny Jones (PDF), sent us a response.
Migrants and the London election – what did the campaigns have to say?
Juan Camilo April 16, 2012 1 Comment(s)
On Wednesday 11 April we hosted a meeting with representatives from the main campaigns fighting the election for Mayor of London and London Assembly.

Not surprisingly, all candidates (Ken Livingstone’s senior adviser Jude Woodward representing the Labour party and Assembly candidates for other parties: Suella Fernandes for the Conservatives; Merlene Emerson for the Liberal Democrats and Natalie Bennett for the Green Party) extolled the contribution that migrants and their communities have made to London.
How to get medical help in London: Mayor launches leaflet to support migrants’ registration with GPs
Juan Camilo April 2, 2012
Many migrants fail to register with a GP either because they are unaware of their eligibility or because they are wrongly turned away. The Mayor of London, with partner organisations has published a leaflet on how to access primary healthcare in London that should support migrants and other excluded groups in registering.

How can I get medical help in London The leaflet can be downloaded in nineteen languages here.    

For the last six months the Migrants’ Rights Network has been working with a group of partner organisations, including colleagues from Praxis and Project London, convened by the Greater London Authority to produce an information resource to raise awareness about primary care amongst migrants and asylum seekers and support them in registering with a GP.
Launch of the ESOL Manifesto: why the campaign for free ESOL has a lot to teach us about campaigning for migrants’ rights
Juan Camilo February 27, 2012
The Action for ESOL campaign won a major victory last August in partially overturning the Government’s proposed removal of free ESOL for most students. On the 3rd of March they will be launching an ESOL Manifesto. There is a lot to celebrate and learn from the campaign and manifesto.

 

In November 2010 the Department for Business Innovation and Skills published its Strategy Document ‘Skills for Sustainable Growth’. Amongst the cost-cutting and employment-focused proposals the document announced that publicly funded provision of ESOL would be focused on people who were looking for employment: only those on ‘active benefits’, i.e. people in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance and Employment Support Allowance would qualify for fully funded ESOL. People on other benefits would be ‘co-funded’; that is, students would have to pay half the fee costs for the courses.
A manifesto on migration and integration for the next Mayor of London
Juan Camilo February 20, 2012 1 Comment(s)
MRN will be putting forward a manifesto asking for commitments on immigration and integration issues from the candidates fighting for the London mayoral election. We would like to invite comments and suggestions on the asks before putting them forward to the candidates. So please let us know what actions and policies you think the Mayor of London should adopt relating to migration and integration.