WHEN Enver Solomon was appointed as the chief executive of the Refugee Council in December 2020, an array of disturbing events were already unfolding in the world, resulting in a snowballing refugee problem.
The UK, in particular, has witnessed controversies surrounding refugees and ideas about dealing with them, making the challenges more intense for charity organisations like the Refugee Council, which works with refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK.
Refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine have made a beeline to reach the UK after the Taliban returned to power in Kabul and Russia attacked the east European nation. The UK government’s Nationality and Borders Act of 2021 and plans to deport migrants to Rwanda has also fuelled the refugee debate, making it imperative for charities to speak out.
“It’s been an extraordinary period,” Solomon told Financial Times last September.
It is not that he did not know the challenges that lay ahead, but he feels they are unprecedented in recent times.
The chief of the Refugee Council got into the charity both because of professional and personal reasons.
First, Solomon had spent a long time in journalism – in the BBC World Service – and entered the charity sector after becoming disillusioned with what he was doing.
“I was a journalist who went into it to try and help change the world, to expose injustice, inequity, wrongdoing and I just felt there was less space and opportunity to do that,” Solomon told Civil Society in an interview in January 2023.
The other reason is Solomon’s own refugee roots. Members of his father’s family were Jewish refugees who had reached Merseyside from eastern Europe.
His maternal grandmother – an Indian Muslim from Gujarat – was sent to South Africa for marriage.
Solomon’s family worked as anti-apartheid activists there. His Johannesburg-born Indian mother worked with South Africa’s former first lady Winnie Mandela on social issues before reaching the UK. She met her future husband and Solomon’s father, who also took an interest in social issues and later became a lecturer.
Solomon’s entry into a new sector was not unsuccessful.
“At the council, I launched a new strategy which prioritises changing the hostile narrative around refugees and those seeking asylum and bringing improvements in refugees’ experience in the UK,” Solomon told the GG2 Power List.
“I also developed multi-directorate business plans and multi-year budgets that were earlier not there and modernised systems and processes, including IT infrastructure, communications and campaigns, public affairs and policy, etc,” he added.
As someone with a media background, Solomon changed the organisation’s profile in the media and with key government stakeholders across political parties. He also spearheaded the charity to win the Times and the Sunday Times Christmas Appeal 2021 – raising over £800k.
Solomon joined the charity during the Covid-19 pandemic and led the body’s response to the challenge and how it affected the refugees’ support system.
He also played an overall leadership role in the sector. Apart from extending generous leadership to sector coalitions (including Together with Refugees and Refugee Week), Solomon helped build sector capacity through two refugee crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine in the last 18 months by providing a new grants programme for the refugee community organisations.
Solomon considers his response to the crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine as his major achievement in the last 12 months. “My work on the Response to Afghanistan and Ukraine crisis; media and public interventions in shaping the political and public debate around people seeking asylum (and in particular those crossing the channel in small boats); a programme of organisational development and improvement, recruitment of a strong senior management team and the development of a new extended leadership team has made a significant contribution,” he told Power List.
Solomon’s experience during his days of growing up in Manchester was not too happy. He said that he faced taunting remarks in school and even today, his surname finds antisemitic reactions on social media. Solomon downplayed his mixed-race identity when he worked as a journalist and avoided becoming a community affairs reporter, he told the Financial Times. But his thought process changed once he became familiar with the Refugee Council. While he got attracted to it due to his personal stories and its reputation, he also started giving more importance to his identity and became the first from that background to lead the council.
Andrew Halper, the former chair of trustees at the Refugee Council chair, said: “Enver is a leader who is tenaciously dedicated to the disadvantaged.”
Besides holding senior management posts at the National Children’s Bureau, the Children’s Society and Barnardos, he has served at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and the Prison Reform Trust. Solomon was also the chair of trustees at the Asylum Aid for five years.
According to Solomon, the UK has a proud tradition of protecting those who flee war, persecution, and human abuses. He wants to ensure that despite the challenges that the country faces today, that tradition is maintained. After taking over the charges of the council, he hoped to work with all its partners and supporters to ensure that the refugees’ voices were at the heart of public debates around them.
But while he thinks the government has struggled to cater to these people despite promising much, he is also interested to know what the common people think about the problem.
According to him, 25 to 30 per cent of the people of the UK are sympathetic towards refugees, while a similar number are stubbornly opposed to them. And it is the 40-40 per cent of people in the middle, whom he calls “persuadables” – those who support refugees in their communities despite feeling worried by the growing numbers – that Solomon is interested in addressing.
The Refugee Council boss is known for his collaborative and courageous approach, which has proved helpful in consensus-building on refugees.
Solomon, who admires football manager Pep Guardiola for his leadership role, is aware that there are many challenges to deal with while working on the issue of refugees: politics, leadership, and racism.
Solomon is well-equipped and confident to deal with each of them. Thanks to his skills in various fields over the years and the ability to think about problems with empathy.