IMAGINE having to survive on just £36.54 a week. That's for all your food, clothes, medicines, travel expenses, phone calls to the family and other basic necessities. What if £26.54 of this allowance was in vouchers?

Forget about shopping around for the cheapest goods, you can only use the vouchers in a restricted number of stores and you want get any change from your purchase either.

Sounds unfair? It is exactly how thousands of men, women and children are being forced to survive in Britain today, thanks to the asylum seekers voucher system imposed by the Government.

Oxfam is concerned about this treatment of the most vulnerable members of our society, people who have endured violent conflict, poverty and persecution in their past and who deserve better treatment in Britain.

That is why Oxfam is campaigning to scrap the voucher system and replace it with more humane funding.

If you agree and think that asylum seekers deserve a better deal, write to me at the address below.

Mark Dawson,Oxfam Campaigns,

69 Petergate, York.

Updated: 11:50 Saturday, August 25, 2001