OK, I'll explain what happend. I apologise as this might be long and might be hard to follow!
After school on Tuesday one of the other teachers and I do after school revision classes for the children who are taking their exams this year. After the class on Tuesday I went in to her room just to see how she had got on and to return some materials I had borrowed from her room. She was on the phone to her dad at the time and she seemed a little upset so once she was off the phone I went to check that she was OK. Her dad was asking her to help out with a family crisis that had happened that day. Her uncle (her dads brother) is mentally disabled and lived with a family as part of a shared lives scheme. In this scheme families are paid by social services to have mentally disabled adults living with them and they care for them and share their lives with them. They get $600 a week for this to cover living costs, their time etc. Her uncle had been living with a family for a while and they knew the family had a Kenyan girl also living with them. They had introduced her a few months ago as a family friend who was visiting and staying with them. However on Monday the Kenyan girl had contacted my friends dad to say that she was not a family friend and basically the family had moved out of the house, the woman was still getting the $600 a week but had left the Kenyan girl to care for my friends uncle. However she was not getting any money to do this (the woman was paying wages into this girls bank account one day and removing it all the next.) So basically this girl and my friends uncle were living in a house that had no equipment in it and were living off the money my friends uncle got each week. So my friends dad had to report this to social services. They got in contact with the woman who straight away threw the Kenyan girl out of the house. So now this poor girl literally had no where to live (the woman had made her pack all her belongings into suitcases and bags and had thrown them out of the house.) The girl was over here legally on a working visa but is not a British citizen (she has been here for 4 years, she has no family as they were all killed in a church masacre in Kenya.)
So, as the girl was wondering the streets near our school my friend was asked by her dad to go and find her as he felt responsible for her being made homeless. So I asked my friend if she wanted me to come with her to help her find her. We eventually found her and had to go and help her get her belongings. So we did that (it is very hard to fit 3 adults, 2 childrens car seats, teachers boxes of books, 4 large suitcases and 6 bin liners of clothes and belongings into one car!!) So once we had done this we did not know what to do next, my friends dad wanted to see her but she couldn't really go to any of our houses and she had no where to go. So my friend paid for her to stay the night in a local hotel. Then the next day she had to go to London to the imigration place as her visa was technically not longer valid as she had no employement so she was an illigal imigrant.
But we all felt so bad for her, she could have stayed in the house and not said anything and allowed my friends uncle to be left uncared for, but she choose to do the right thing. My friend contacted out local MP (senator I guess) and told the story and he said he would try to help out. In the mean time we knew she would have to go to London to the imigration cantre and explain her case. She did this any they told her that her visa was no longer valid and they were putting her on the next flight back to Kenya. Luckily as my friends family had contacted the MP and the social worker who was dealing with my friends uncle also tried to help out they managed to stop her from being sent back. The imigration people said that has her visa was valid until June then if she could find employement she could stay. So yesterday she came back to our town to stay with the social worker for a few days. Today we found out that the social worker had managed to find her a job with a Kenyan family who needed a child minder so she will be OK.
I just couldn't believe that some one could treat a fellow human being like that, not caring for someone in need and then conning someone else to do then job for them. Then making them homeless when they had been caught out. Also I could not believe that in our society someones life possessions could be reduced to a few suitcases. When we went to check her in to the hotel my friend told her to take what she needed for a few days and that she would look after the rest of her things for her. So she took a few clothes out of her case and her bible to keep with her along with her passport and documents.
So, long story short after school on Tuesday I popped into my friends room to see if her class had mastered working out the relationship between fractions, decimals and percentages and then 30 minutes later I was trying to rescue and help re house a refugee who had been made homeless when she had tried to help someone whose needs she considered greater than hers. Not what you really expect to be doing after the average day teaching 8 year olds I guess!!
I hope you all managed to follow that story!! I am still counting my bessings for my family, friends and the belongings I have and the roof over my head.