Stories tagged Impact
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“You can’t impose empowerment”
Community Sponsorship naturally attracts people who want to help others. You get involved because you want to help refugees in a practical way. But sometimes helping people can disempower them. So how do you empower newly arrived refugees rather than simply help them? Eveline, a Community Sponsor in Bristol, gives us her reflections on this question.
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60 seconds with Nour
Nour arrived in the UK as a teenager, having been resettled with his family. Here he tells us about his hopes and fears when he found out he was moving to the UK, and what advice he would give to other teens being resettled.
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60 seconds with... Carol, Community Sponsor, Exeter
Carol started volunteering with her local Community Sponsorship group, CHARIS Exeter, in 2018. Here she shares the toughest and best bits about Community Sponsorship and describes an emotional reunion at Exeter airport.
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Am I having an impact?
With so many different ways to support refugees, it can be difficult to know how you can make the best use of your time. We asked a Community Sponsorship Group member in London what made him choose to give his time and energy to Community Sponsorship.
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My experience with “super volunteers”
Marisol Reyes Soto is a researcher at University of Birmingham’s Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS). She led the research on an evaluation of the Community Sponsorship scheme in its pilot phase. Here she reflects on the impact meeting volunteers had on her.
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Six Big Moments: St Bartholomew’s and Friends Community Sponsorship Group in Rainhill
The St Bartholomew’s group welcomed a Syrian family to their area in July 2019. We talked to leaders Ged and Paul about big moments from the first part of their Community Sponsorship experience – from bringing people together to form a friendly, dynamic group to the long-awaited trip to Manchester Airport to meet the family.
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What is the difference between refugee sponsorship in Canada and the UK?
Professor Michaela Hynie from York University in Toronto has been studying refugee resettlement in Canada for over a decade. Canadians have privately sponsored more than 300,000 refugees. Here Professor Hynie reflects on her observations of the UK’s Community Sponsorship scheme and explains why the UK’s focus on community resettlement over family reunion can represent both a challenge and a strength of the UK model.
Films
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“It has brought us closer together.”
Iman Khan from Kettering Refugee Assistance tells us about why he got involved in Community Sponsorship and the impact that it's had on his community.
In the media
More media coverage-
June 15th, 2021
The Cambridgeshire town that bought a Syrian refugee family a home
We met with one incredible town to learn why they bought a Syrian family their own home.
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October 25th, 2020
“Scotland is our second home”
Basma Hamadeh and her family were welcome to Edinburgh by Scotland’s first Community Sponsorship group.
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May 21st, 2020
“Their support was life changing for me and my family”
Abdullah Alkhalaf explains how Community Sponsorship impacted him and calls for more people to sponsor refugees.
