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Lottery payout helps refugees

From the archive, first published Thursday 22nd Dec 2005.

Oxford-based charity Refugee Resource has won a £300,000 Lottery grant to extend its work over the next three years.

The Big Lottery Fund grant will enable the charity to continue its employment advice and counselling services and to set up a mentoring scheme for adult refugees and asylum seekers.

The 25 volunteer mentors, matched on the basis of shared professional or personal interests, will be recruited from April next year to provide friendship and support.

Last year, the charity, based in Collins Street, Oxford, won an award from the National Information Forum and its employment scheme was used as a national example of good practice at a conference hosted by London-based Employability Forum.

Several organisations have been involved in the employment scheme, including Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service and Job Centre Plus.

Refugee Resource supports up to 300 refugees and asylum seekers across Oxfordshire each year.

Director Amanda Webb-Johnson said: "This grant will make a big difference. We have been working hard to raise funds to continue our much-needed services and are absolutely delighted that our efforts have been successful.

"One of the key aims of Refugee Resource is to improve the well-being of refugees and asylum seekers and to assist them to become more independent and more integrated within local communities.

"Most people would very much like to work and have useful skills, but find a lot of barriers to getting work.

"This programme helps them regain their confidence and helps employers with the paper work and legal issues, which can be difficult to understand.

"We're quite confident we will be able to recruit volunteer mentors.

"There are a lot of people in Oxfordshire who are sympathetic to the issues facing refugees and asylum seekers."

Fatma Kayhan, a refugee from Kurdistan, who now works as an interpreter in Oxfordshire, said: "We need people and organisations to help us find our way around and try to understand how things work.

"Because we have lost security, organisations like Refugee Resource that are not linked to the Government can help us to feel secure again."

Ruth Bryant, a youth officer for Oxfordshire Youth Mentoring Service, which supports young people up to 19, said: "This is great news for services supporting refugees and asylum seekers.

"The continuation of the counselling and employment advice service is essential, and the development of a mentoring service for adults is much needed."

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