Many international students in the UK, as well as care leavers and those with families abroad, face Christmas alone
Every year Msue Chiponda, an international student, joins her extended family at a house they rent by Lake Malawi to celebrate Christmas together. But, thanks to the pandemic, she won’t be going this year. Instead, she is facing Christmas alone in her studio bedroom at Nottingham University.
Across the UK, mass testing is under way at university campuses to allow many thousands of students to travel home for Christmas during the government’s six-day window, which started on Thursday. However, like many overseas students, Chiponda, who is in the third year of a pharmacy degree, says Covid has made it too difficult for her to fly home.
