“They are like one family, like someone coming to their parents’ home where they are welcomed and looked after.”

The hall in Liverpool is a hive of activity. People are receiving advice on legal rights, a hot meal is being prepared, supplies are being distributed from the food bank, and people are relaxing and chatting with friendly faces. 

Amidst it all a queue of people waits patiently for a haircut.

This is the British Red Cross refugee and asylum seeker support hub and here, every Friday, you will find volunteer Ehsan cutting hair and trimming beards.

Ehsan has been running the Refugee Barber Project since autumn 2024 and he and two other volunteers deliver as many as 30 haircuts every week.

For the people who sit in his chair Ehsan is a friendly face with reassuring words. 

“When I first speak to them, I welcome them and ask where they are from. Many of them are a bit nervous, so I tell them: ‘Take it easy, In Sha Allah (god willing) you will get everything. It needs time and patience.’ I explain that the British Red Cross is here to help them and that there are solicitors available.”

Ehsan knows exactly how his customers are feeling because when he first came to the drop-in in August 2024, he too was an asylum seeker. 

He had just arrived in Liverpool, and he had only visited the hub to pick up a SIM card, but he was struck by how much more he found there.

“When I visit the first time, I see the all the people there and they help us and give us food. We didn't have any money to buy anything, but they helped us. It was good, I liked it. But I saw that there was no barber. In Syria before the war happened, I had a big salon and a good team. I had eight chairs and was busy all the time. I wanted to help the Red Cross to help the people, so I requested to set up a barber.”

“Helping people who truly need help is a very good thing. When you help people, you can see that they feel relieved and grateful. 

"Helping stressed people and making them happy gives you a good feeling inside. At the end of the day, they leave, and you can see their mood has changed. That’s why they come back the next Friday - to feel better again.”

Becoming a British Red Cross volunteer was something of a full circle moment for him. 

“In Syria there is the ICRC. I did my first aid training with them in Damascus, so I knew the Red Cross. When I arrived in the UK I asked about the British Red Cross and went to see them. I helped people there and that is why God now helps my family.”

Asked to sum up the sense of community that exists at the drop-in, Eshan says:

“It is really good when you see those people with the British Red Cross helping them. They come together, and you can see that they are strongly connected and close. Inside, you feel an emotional feeling. They are like one family, like someone coming to their parents’ home where they are welcomed and looked after.”

Ehsan now has the right to remain and, with support from the British Red Cross Refugee Family Reunion programme, he was last year joined by his wife and three children. 

He described the welcome they have all received in Liverpool as “amazing” and proudly relays that the teacher messages him to tell him how well his children are doing at school.

The children have even grown accustomed to the local dialect. “Once when I phoned to talk with my family in Syria there was a man in front of me and he talked scouse with me. My children say ‘Dad, what is that language, I cannot understand anything.’ I said, ‘when you come here after one month, two months, you're going understand everything.’ And they do!”

Ehsan now hopes to find a job working as a barber in Liverpool, but he also has big ideas for a British Red Cross pop up barber service, run by volunteers in the charity shops.