Asylum Justice is a voluntary project that gives legal advice to failed asylum seekers. Begun in Swansea, it also operates in Cardiff and Newport. Last July the URC General Assembly awarded it first prize in its Community Project Awards. Asylum Justice was set up by retired barrister Roger Warren Evans, who now leads a large number of volunteers. The project has made him a very busy man - too busy even to travel to collect the award in Loughborough!

However, he did find time to give an interview on YouTube - see the below video to find out more about the centre, and the motivation of those who work there.

Roger, a retired barrister, explains that they began by offering failed asylum seekers "tea and sympathy". Then he realied that the needed something more - they needed advice to help them with forms they could not read, and procedures they could not understand. So he requalified as an immigration advisor and began to build his team of volunteers. He describes it now as, effectively, "a large solicitor's practice" that is entirely free to the users. It now has 25 volunteers (40 if you include interpreters) and has helped 2,500 people in the past five years.

What motivates people to help in this way? Roger has given this a lot of thought. SOme of the volunteers are law students, wanting to use their developing skills to help others. Others are "political" in the broadest sense - wanting to see change in a global system leading to great hardship and distress. And many are church goers who have realised that what matters is what we do to help and to change things. He offers us all a powerful challenge - What are we doing to put our compassion into action? Asylum Justice is still looking for volunteers, especially in Cardiff.

Roger is surely right when he says that Asylum Justice shows that, "action by ordinary people is enough to achieve great things."