As we move into March, the Justice and Peace Refugee Project continues to receive large numbers of clients using our services, with new clients registering every week. We have clients from all parts of the globe, with world events impacting where our clients come from at different times.
As previously reported, we continue to be concerned about the rising number of our clients facing housing challenges, many of whom are from Sudan, who having been granted leave to remain and are being evicted from hotel accommodation with nowhere to live, so currently homeless. The SVP have been providing sleeping bags to these clients, but are running short, so they would be grateful for any donations of good quality sleeping bags.
We also have several clients who have had negative decisions on their claims, but they have not been able to access the support they need with their appeals. Clients receiving negative decisions only have 14 days to lodge their appeal. The North East Refugee Service has recently stopped accepting referrals for appeals. Justice First still provides support, but they are usually booked up several weeks in advance. The Law Centre can sometimes offer support on a one-off basis. At the project, we try to signpost clients to services that can provide them with the help they need, but this is proving challenging at the moment for this group of clients. As you can imagine, this is a very stressful situation for them.
Project Co-ordinator, Azad, has recently been able to refer several of our clients to First – a learning and development agency, empowering enterprise skills and entrepreneurship in collaboration with government, employers, education and community organisations. First helps people get the connections, skills and confidence they need to progress into jobs, self-employment or further education.
We are fortunate to operate out of the same premises as the SVP, as this allows us to work closely in partnership with them to benefit our clients. In addition to providing our clients with SIM cards, we are very grateful that the SVP have recently started providing our clients with £25 vouchers which they can use to purchase clothes and other items in the centre. This is a great help to those clients receiving vouchers.
The Refugee Project is always looking for ways to spread the word about their work. Recently a volunteer was invited to speak about the Refugee Project at the 2nd Hexham Guides Group. The patrols within the group were then tasked with purchasing items for the project that would be most useful to clients. The girls learned a lot about the plight of asylum seekers and the difficulties of living on a limited budget and we are very grateful for the generous donation of food and toiletries made to the project. Thank you!
Items most urgently needed can be found here.
We continue to rely on the generosity of individuals and parishes for donations for which we are incredibly grateful. As we continue to support so many clients and their families each month, financial support for our work is also essential. Details of our bank account (DHN Justice & Peace Refugee Project) can be found on our webpage. Please consider Gift-Aiding – a Gift Aid Declaration form is available here.
For more details about our work and how you can assist, please contact our Project Co-ordinator at jp.refugeeproject@diocesehn.org.uk or visit our webpage.