Community Voices is a new series of posts written by the organisations we support. We hope to provide a platform for local charities to share their expertise and offer their unique insight into the opportunities available to and challenges faced by Buckinghamshire residents.

This week, we hear from Wycombe Refugee Partnership  who received a multiyear grant through our Local & Community  programme in 2020.

Wycombe Refugee Partnership (WRP) is a multi-cultural group in High Wycombe who have come together out of a shared concern to help refugee families in the UK. We find them private rental accommodation in the Wycombe area and give wraparound support, helping with job-seeking and registration with schools, doctors, dentists and English classes. By the end of 2020 we had resettled 21 families.

Here are some of the things we have achieved through our work over the past year.

Mellor House

Purchased by Chilterns Area Quaker Meeting in 2018, Mellor House is operated by WRP as a half-way house for refugee families in High Wycombe, while they establish themselves in the UK. It has housed three families so far, the third moving in just as lockdown was taking hold.

Community Response project

For five years WRP had a clearly defined remit: to resettle families with refugee status in High Wycombe. Then, a week into lockdown, an asylum seeker living in High Wycombe approached us for help, and it soon became evident that there was a wider need in the community. We managed to obtain some funding to provide emergency support to refugees and asylum-seekers in the area – visiting applicants, identifying their needs and providing for them with supermarket vouchers, fresh food from supermarket overstocks and a number of local support groups, halal meat where required, and a great many other items such as bicycles, laptops, school stationery, furniture, shoes and clothes.

Education

The education team and the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) volunteers work hard to support our families.

With the onset of the pandemic, the team ensured that families had access to online learning, as well as supporting asylum-seeking families with school admission advice, and help with uniforms and bus passes.

Adult family members, where possible, are directed to Millbrook Adult Learning Centre. Sometimes, those who are working towards requalifying into certain professions are referred to the Marlow Language Centre. When it is not possible for families to go to language class, the ESOL team provide home tuition. While these centres were closed during lockdown, our volunteers provided online support.

Befriending

As well as providing befrienders to the three families settled in Mellor House this year, the team also fulfils the ongoing needs of around a dozen of the 21 families that WRP has supported over the years. In addition, four families have been helped to move to new homes, and one family with a new-born child has been supported through the transition to parenthood.

Volunteers

In 2016, WRP had eight volunteers. Today, we have 200 on our database. Of these, over 80 are involved in regular activity, helping to support our families.

Finance

WRP’s budget is split between its main activities: education, Mellor House, other housing, family interview, new family set up, administration, governance, advertisement and a contingency and emergency fund. Our grant from the Rothschild Foundation will contribute enormously to all the activities we undertake to support our families.

Community Voices is a new series of posts written by the organisations we support. We hope to provide a platform for local charities to share their expertise and offer their unique insight into the opportunities available to and challenges faced by Buckinghamshire residents.

If you are a current or past grantee and would like to be featured in the Community Voices series, please read our contribution guidance.