NEXT Thursday,

is supposed to be a happy day for kids in The Meadows.

A group of parents will launch Kidz United Meadows, a children's group aimed at getting asylum-seeker children out meeting and playing with other children in the community.

But one of the group's founders and her two children will be missing.

Selina Adda her nine-year-old son, Brian, and five-year-old daughter, Chelsea, are being held at Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire.

She sought asylum in the UK after fleeing Ghana five years ago.

They were due to be put on a flight to Ghana on January 27, but their solicitor was able to stop that. On Thursday, however, a court decided against releasing them from Yarl's Wood. They are likely to have another bail hearing this week.

"It's because of her that Kidz United is happening," said Helen Coppins, a close friend of Selina's whose two daughters are in the same years at St Patrick's primary school as Brian and Chelsea.

"They're not just sitting at home saying 'we're poor asylum seekers, we can't do anything.' They're making a difference in the community."

At St Patrick's, Wilford, children have struggled to understand what's happening to their friends.

Nadine Shaw's eight-year-old son, Jacob, is good friends with Brian. He's been acting up, getting angry. "I don't think he understands why," she said. "Why they can't stay."

Head teacher at St Patrick's Nick Benzie said: "Brian's classmates and children from other classes who know Brian, were openly crying at school and very emotional when they heard that the family had been taken away again to be deported.

"They felt it was cruel and very unkind to do this to them and that it was unfair.

"Chelsea's classmates, despite their young age, are sad about her being taken away from them and talk about how they miss her and want her to come back. Letters that they wrote to her talk of how much they love her."

Brian's classmates have written him letters of support. And he's written back.

"I miss you so much," he wrote from the detention centre last week. "I feel so so sad here. I wish I could come back to St. Patrick. I have a school here but it is not better than St Patrick. I miss all of you very much and I am hoping I will come back.

Love from Brian xxx."

Hani Zubeidi, the family's solicitor, believes they have a strong case as laws exist that give each member of the family the right to a personal and family life.

"The children are clearly settled," Mr Zubeidi said. "They're more British than they are Ghanian, really."

Ms Adda, a Christian, comes from a part of Ghana that is largely Muslim, and where the practice of female genital mutilation is common.

As a young woman she was betrothed to a Muslim chieftain 30 years her senior. She fled to the capital, Accra.

There she began a relationship, had Brian and later became pregnant again. Then associates of the chieftain found her. It was then that she fled to Britain.

A spokesperson for the UK Border Agency would not comment on an individual case but said that when it and the courts rule a family has no need for protection they are expected to return home, preferably voluntarily.

Since coming to Britain, Ms Adda has studied for a nursing qualification and done voluntary work. Asylum-seekers cannot hold paying jobs.

And then there's Kidz United. It will start next week, Helen said. She just hopes it starts with all founding members present.

erik.petersen@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk