Ties that Bind: UNHCR Series Highlights Huge Benefits of UK Refugee Community Sponsorship
Ties that Bind: UNHCR Series Highlights Huge Benefits of UK Refugee Community Sponsorship
LONDON, 30 October 2020 - UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, on Friday released Ties that Bind, a photo-driven content series highlighting the huge benefits - to refugees and communities across the country - of the UK’s community sponsorship programme.
“Community sponsorship is transformative,” said Rossella Pagliuchi-Lor, UNHCR’s UK Representative. “It provides refugee families with a support network to help them adapt, learn and become independent more quickly. But it also has a real effect on local volunteers, binding them together in a common cause and allowing them - in a small way - to be part of the global solution to forced displacement.”
She added: “The tragic events in the Channel this week demonstrate again the need for concerted international efforts to address the complex root causes of displacement. Re-opening and expanding legal pathways for more refugees to come to the UK in safety is one tangible way that this country can help. Our series also shows that there are many across the UK ready to volunteer to support refugees while they are acclimatizing to their new lives.”
Last year, UNHCR travelled the UK chronicling the lives of five refugee families and their community supporters in West Wales, Devon, Liverpool, Greater Manchester and London. The resulting photographs, videos and text show the enormous potential of the scheme if expanded. From the Arnouts in rural Devon to the Alchiks in West Wales, all the families were bowled over by the welcome they had received and were busy studying, training and in some cases working, to anchor their lives in their new surroundings. “The generosity of the group has taken us aback,” said Hassan Al Shaabin, a Syrian resettled in South London . “Our children are safe now. Our papers are all done - we had help with the medical side. Everyone treats us like family.”
As UNHCR found, friendships made are likely to endure, both between the refugees and their supporters and among the locals who offer their time and resources. Vicky Moller, of the welcome group in Cardigan, Wales, said: “The generosity of people is both moving and breathtaking. Community sponsorship is a lovely thing to do, it’s very rewarding, it’s a little kernel of perfection but it’s too small in Britain.”
The Government’s Community Sponsorship programme, running since 2016, enables community groups to become directly involved in supporting refugee families resettled in the UK through its main resettlement programme.
Refugee resettlement to the UK -- and with it the community scheme -- has been suspended since the start of the pandemic. UNHCR’s Pagliuchi-Lor said: “We hope that resettlement to the UK will restart very soon – once reception capacity is confirmed and any remaining logistical issues related to COVID are overcome by the authorities. The pandemic has presented new, acute hardships and uncertainties for refugees. Needs are greater than ever.”
Volunteers are desperate for the scheme to restart. Some are looking to sponsor additional families. Felicity Brangan, from a group in Bury, added: “Twenty people at your back, that's what it’s about.” Her sponsor group knew they had cut through when a member was asked randomly at the checkout till of a local supermarket, “‘How’s our family?”
The photographs in the series were taken by Andrew McConnell. Further information on getting involved in community sponsorship can be found at Reset.
Press Contact : Matthew Saltmarsh [email protected]; +44-7880 230 985
The stories can been seen here.
The photos can be downloaded at Refugees Media (registration needed).
About Community Sponsorship
The scheme was introduced in 2016 and developed by the Home Office in partnership with civil society and local government. So far, around 450 refugees have benefitted. Under the programme, UNHCR identifies vulnerable refugees in need of resettlement, who are referred to the UK for consideration. Those who are accepted by the Government can then potentially be matched with a sponsor group approved by the Home Office.
Sponsoring groups must have charity status, identify and secure housing for two years, obtain local authority consent, develop safeguarding procedures, engage in training and complete an application. But participants say creating a sponsor group has become less onerous than it was in the early days.
Sponsors’ support includes helping with interpreting, access to English lessons and schools, helping access benefits, healthcare and employment or training. The rest is up to the groups and the families. The aim is that the families are able to stand on their own feet over time and create truly independent and anchored lives in the UK.