I am a Brightonian in Cuba, where I am doing volunteer work teaching English as part of my gap year.

I have been here six months out of my 12-month stay. Through email, I have learnt of the situation in Saltdean concerning the housing of asylum-seekers.

We in the West are so used to discussing the huge problems of people desperate to enter our countries but I am learning what it is like to live somewhere people are desperate to leave.

Whether you are sympathetic or not to their cause, people in poverty are still slightly unreal when they are so far away. But here, trying to leave is normal and you Westerners are slightly unreal and, oh, so far away.

These people live in houses without running water and with infrequent electricity. They cannot afford to buy fruit to keep their children healthy.

They switch on the television every day and see Western films of people living the good life. They see bathtubs which they have never seen in real life, they see people dining in restaurants and dancing in nightclubs and they wonder how it is they had the misfortune to be born in a country without these luxuries.

They think to themselves, "Do I not have a right to enjoy these things?"

The West is like a paradise to them and they imagine how good their life would be if they got there. They think the rest of the world is waiting with its arms open, willing to rescue them. They know the West has so much it would be easy for us to help them.

I want to share with them what I have. It would make me so proud to be able to give them the fruits of my land and a better life. They have no idea what hate and animosity are lying in wait for them.

They have no clue they will be rejected by the only people with the power and capability to help them. They have no concept of the hostility they could meet. Maybe they are naive in thinking that those with everything would help those with nothing?

Asylum-seekers are refugees, yes, but before they are refugees they are people, exactly the same as you except by chance of nature they were born into a less privileged place.

And you have the chance to help them. Please, do not throw away one of the biggest chances you have to help people. Allow asylum-seekers to settle in Saltdean.

-Evelyn O'Hanlon, Universidad de Matanzas, Cuba