Tuesday will mark Agnes Tanoh’s eighth Christmas in the UK after she fled Ivory Coast in west Africa in 2011. “It’s not because I wanted to leave,” she says. “I had to leave because I was working in the former government and there was civil war, and my party was defeated, so we had to go.
“I was arrested in my country, put in prison, and with the help of the UN army, I was released. But I could not stay there.”
She came to the UK alone, after first travelling to neighbouring Ghana, leaving behind her husband, children, family and friends. Now, Christmas sees her spending her day with her “new family” – her community of friends built from shared similar experiences.
Many of them she met through charity Hope Projects, as well as Migrant Voice, a “migrant-led organisation” which provides skills building for migrant communities, including refugees and asylum seekers.
“Every Christmas [the charity] has a party for asylum seekers. It’s not with family because we are far from our families, so it’s with a new family we have in the UK and we spend Christmas with them going to church, and that’s it.
“Now during Christmas, we have a party, go dancing.”
The 62-year-old went through the UK’s asylum settlement system for seven years, eventually gaining “indefinite leave to remain” in August this year.
Newly settled in Coventry, Tanoh is hoping to find a job in administration next year so that she can get her independence back.
She describes the Midlands city as “like my village”, having sent two of her children here to learn English years back and using the opportunity to visit them and learn the language, which she “loves”.
“The first time I visited this country it was in 1997, it was just because I wanted to see how England was. After that, I sent my children to come and study here, but I have never planned to come and live in England. The best place for me is my country.”
Tanoh comes from a big family but was the only one involved in politics.
“I was arrested in my country, put in prison, and with the help of the UN army, I was released. But I could not stay there”
- Agnes Tanoh
“I still miss my people, I still miss my friends, I still miss my brother. But I hope that soon, everything will be OK in my country and I can go back. I have to be here, is always what I say.”
She added: “I like to be free. I like my freedom, and I think if I find a job, I will be free to do what I want, to travel, to pay what I have to pay, to enjoy a bit after seven, eight years, it is time for me for a new beginning.”
First Christmas
For Mohammed, a 24-year-old Palestinian, Christmas feels new and strange, and though he is Muslim, he is keen to embrace the traditions of his new home. “Everything in the UK is different – different language, different culture, different jobs, but everything is good but it is expensive,” he says.
He has lived in Taunton, Somerset, with his family since April after they fled from Iraq. He is supported by Christian Help and Action for Refugees in Somerset (CHARIS), a community sponsorship group who have sponsored two families in the last two years.
He lives with his mother and father, his 23-year-old brother and his sister, 17. Back in Iraq, he has a wife and two sisters who live with their families.
“I miss my wife and two sisters and their family who are back in Iraq. I like the UK – I will not go back to Iraq,” he said of his experience in Britain.
Christmas Day will be a celebration of music and a hybrid of his two worlds. Laying out his plans, he said: “I will be staying at home with my family, we will eat party food, maybe we will play some games. We may also do some dancing and singing, my sister and I like Turkish music.
“We will also listen to Arabic music and maybe some English music. I may also go to the town centre and party with English people.”
He added: “As a Muslim we have different traditions, like the food we eat. The UK is now my home.”
While in Iraq, Mohammed and his family made and sold baklava, a sweet dessert made of paper-thin pastry, chopped nuts and sweetened with honey or syrup. It’s a small business which he envisions carrying on in Taunton as a market stall, selling other Arabic food alongside it, he said.
But he also has other ambitions. “For me I would like to go to college and study to become a mechanic. If I cannot do this, I will do any job because in Iraq everyone gives all their energy to work.
“I would like my wife to come to the UK, I would like us to have a small home and I would like a small job so I can learn more English. For my family we would like my two sisters and their families to come to the UK.
Mohammed isn’t the only one in his family to passionately call Britain home.
His father said: “I am now an Englishman, I like all English traditions, English people have a good heart, they have mercy, they are kind and [have] a love for humanity, all their words are sincere.”
A quieter celebration in Oldham
Elziabit, originally from Sudan, has lived in the UK since August 2017 and came to seek asylum with her children, aged 14 and six, after leaving Egypt.
The 43-year-old lives in Oldham, Manchester and volunteers at Oxfam as part of the charity’s Future Skills Training for Women, a six-month voluntary training programme.
She says Christmas in the UK is “a bit different” and in contrast to the activity-filled day outdoors she would usually experience where she used to live.
“We do celebrate Christmas, but I feel that in the UK it is a bit different from where I used to live in Egypt and Sudan.
“When celebrating Christmas in Egypt or Sudan, we go out and do something, we buy new clothes for the children, and in the morning we go to church to pray. After that, we do children’s activities and take them out.
“But here in the UK, it is more families who celebrate Christmas with each other at home, on their own.”
A lack of public transport on the day makes it difficult for her to recreate her usual Christmas, but she says she is keen to celebrate indoors.
“It’s not difficult to make contact with the community, but the language barrier makes it hard for me. At the moment I want to improve my English so that will open the door for me to do anything I want in the future.”
Elziabit left Sudan around 20 years ago for Egypt, where she tried to claim asylum through the UN to come to the UK, which she was refused at the start, but was accepted 15 years later.
She told HuffPost UK: “I found it very hard to settle in Egypt because it was my first time leaving my country so I found it very hard at the beginning.
“Living in Egypt is very hard - children have the opportunity to get an education, but it is very hard for them to get a job in the future, so that’s why I decided to leave Egypt.”
Next year, she is hoping to visit her family in Sudan for the first time since she left.