People must be part of society from the start so they can learn together

“Abay, Abay,” she shouts for me, “Look at me! Jumping in muddy puddles!” And then there were two jumping in muddy puddles in the east end of Glasgow.

“Abay” – that’s me. It means granny in Tigrinya. But it also symbolises so much more. It is integration.

My granddaughter was born in the UK, to my refugee foster daughter. Her jumping in muddy puddles would not have been possible without the British Red Cross and others.

So much attention is paid to the period in a refugee’s life when they flee. Stories of what it is like to rebuild your life, or be reunited with family, are less often told. Or the stories about numerous official forms to fill in that paint a picture of an asylum process setup to say “no”.

Government is often found saying the UK has a “proud history” of welcoming refugees. That is disputable, not least when the figures for refugee settlement in the UK falls far short of countries – Pakistan and Uganda, to name a couple – with nothing even approaching our wealth.

But what about the stories that come after the welcome? And the real work of integration?

Scotland was one of the first countries to develop an integration strategy, insisting on integration from day one.

It is not something that can be reduced to finding a house or learning a new language. It is the work of people. To emphasise this, the Scottish Government titled its 2018-22 refugee integration strategy and the committee I chair, New Scots.

It reminds us that integration is a creative task of making room for others.

My refugee family is spread across the world. We share images of children slowly growing up, of new haircuts, of the weekend picnic. A familiar experience to all families under lockdown.

Families like ours have no hope of meeting beyond the hopes of family reunion, laid out in the Refugee Convention and the operations of organisations such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

But when the Red Cross works miracles, integration begins with welcome. The children then drag us into their games, full of laughter.

Good integration is mutual, it happens with the support of state and NGO structures, but it’s also about making new families, new communities.

In my experience, those who are best at this are refugees. The more we empower refugee-led groups, the more successful and integrating becomes.

In Scotland, as opposed to other countries, people seeking asylum do not have to wait to integrate.

People must be part of society from the start so they can learn together, about each other and about differences.

To see this policy extended to other parts of the UK would be a positive step.

When we miss this and when we forget that it is for life, for the possibility of grandchildren with their grandparents, jumping in muddy puddles, then we miss why the Refugee Convention is a sacred bond in modernity, beyond the bonds of blood.