In June 2021 Reset and the Refugee Council held an online event to hear views from refugee-led community organisations about Community Sponsorship. We have presented a joint briefing to the Immigration Minister Chris Philp making 5 recommendations to enable participation in Community Sponsorship by refugee-led community organisations.
To grow Community Sponsorship, more people must be prepared to act as Community Sponsors. However, we know that there are barriers to participation in Community Sponsorship, and that these barriers affect some people more than others. It is notable, for example, that refugee-led community organisations (RCOs) have not participated widely in Community Sponsorship, despite expressing interest early in the programme.
In Refugee Week 2021 the Refugee Council and Reset held an event for RCOs to discuss the barriers they face to participating in Community Sponsorship and how they would improve the programme. This briefing sets out the key barriers highlighted at that event and makes 5 recommendations to the Home Office to better enable RCOs to participate in Community Sponsorship, thereby increasing the overall scale of the programme.