Refugee Women Connect - Supporting Female Refugees And Asylum Seekers

So hello everyone, my name is Comfort and I'm here today with my colleague Laura who will be coming up in a bit. I'm an advocacy policy officer for Refugee Women Connect. Refugee Women Connect is a charity organisation that is based in Liverpool but we provide support across Merseyside for asylum seeking women, refugees and women who have got no status whatsoever. So the work that we do It's just providing practical and holistic support for those women. As you would know, or some of you might know, the asylum system can be very daunting. I haven't gone through it myself. I understand the challenges and a lot of women living in limbo as regards to the time it takes for the Home Office to respond to applications. So

at Refugee Women Connect, we have women from different parts of the world who have fled persecution and, you know, every happening you can ever think about a woman going through. And that is why even with the new proposed bill by the government, Refugee Women Connect is standing and saying no to the bill because it would have a great impact on the women that we support. It is already a hostile environment for those women and the new bill is just going to make it even more harder for the women. Currently, we are seeing challenges with with legal representation for our women so they get legal, you know, proper legal advice for their cases. And the new proposed bill is separating, you know, who comes in legally and who comes

in illegally. There is also a proposal that states that if you don't come through the routes the government wants you to come through you will be deported. So it doesn't matter if you are coming from Afghanistan if you have not come through the safe route you will be refused your asylum and you'll be asked to go back. So what we do and the support that we provide for women and their children is to ensure when they get into the country they feel safe. They feel like they are in a place where they can express themselves. Like I said, I haven't gone through it myself. Working full time, I'm a mum of two. I feel safe with my boys here in Liverpool. I literally understand what it would mean if

a person does not get that opportunity for safety like they want. A department in refugee women connect provide well-being supports and this could be as basic as sanitary towels, tissue papers to use. The pandemic hit and things became really hard for the swimming. I don't know whether you know asylum seekers only get five pounds a day to sustain themselves, five pounds per person, which is very, very difficult. Now, even though I've gone through the system, I work now, I'm able to take my children to KFC and spend over five pounds on them. Our women are not able to do that because they're not allowed to work, which is one of the things that we're advocating.

I don't have the education background. Those women, a lot of them don't have the education by then, but I can tell you I have met nurses, doctors, surgeons that are in the UK seeking asylum. And if given the opportunity to work, you would see that they would not only contribute back to this community, but they would also shine and give a better life. So we want to continue the work that we do in providing, you know, referring them to good solicitors that can take up their cases. we want to continue to provide them with the basic essentials like I mentioned, sanitary towels, nappies for the children, milk, food from food banks. Where food banks are

not accessible, our well-being coordinator takes it door to door. I was privileged to be the front line of refugee women last year in delivering food to the women as well as those in the hotels that were placed in the hotel. So I know firsthand that As much as some of us could save a little money during the pandemic, they could not save their money and they didn't even have the money. So when you and I could run to the shops and purchase all the things before they finished in the shops last year, they were not able to do that. So a lot of them were living without. We work with women who are also destitute,

so it means they are refused asylum seekers. they don't have where to stay so they're either couch crashing and living in hostels. We also provide support for the swimming. So myself and Laura here are just to here to just give you a brief description of the work that we do. Just in case in your hearts you really want to work with us, we would really appreciate it. We want to continue to provide the support because it's essential. Like I said, Refugee Women Connect, I've gone from being a service user where I've benefited from the organization and now I've been working for the organization for over four years. So it just, is something that we would

like to continue, whether it's in providing food, whether it's in providing information. And one of the key things with Refugee Women Connect at the moment is making sure that EBEs, Experts That Experience Women, are at the at the forefront of the decision-making at the organization so we're training advocates that have gone through the system themselves and one of the trainings that we include is digital training we don't have you know we need the capacity to be able to make sure everyone has that digital training to be able to use as simple as zoom because that's what the world is all you know using at the moment as little as using WhatsApp and using all the

things but we don't have the gadgets, we don't have all that and we're just depending on people to donate for us to continue the work. I'll invite Lauren just so she can tell you more about our fundraising if that's okay.

So as comfort said, my name is Laura, I'm part of the team at Refugee Women Connect. I'm not going to take up a huge amount of your time because I know you've got a jam-packed rest of your afternoon, but I just wanted to say a few words on how you might be able to get involved in Refugee Women Connect if that's something that you would like to do. So there's broadly two ways that you could get involved. The first is as an individual and the second would be as an organisation. So as an individual there's lots of ways that you can support us. We are very much in need of financial contributions, whether that's a

one-off donation or a recurring monthly donation is really useful for us. £10 can buy nappies for a refugee baby for one week. £25 can buy a session with a representative from Refugee Women Connect with an interpreter to help a woman prepare for her home office interview. And £100 can provide one-to-one bespoke mental health support for a full month for a woman recovering from trauma. You could also, if you can't afford to donate right now but would like to support anyway, you could also support us by giving your time. We are always looking for new volunteers or new fundraisers. So if that's at all of interest to you, please just come and have a chat to

me or you can drop me an email. Alternatively, if you'd like to support us as an organisation rather than as an individual, we are currently looking for a log-on. partnership organisations, regardless of what you're doing, we want to work with you to help us achieve our goals, but also help them achieve yours. So as an organisation, our expertise lies in diversity and inclusion and in mental health. And if you do work for an organisation that has charity partnerships, we'd love to be considered. Again, just come and have a chat to me if you'd like, and we can discuss a few more details. But yeah, thank you so much for your time today and for including

us and welcoming us into this little conference and I hope you have a brilliant rest of your afternoon.