The Guardian and Observer charity appeal 2016 is supporting three charities working to help child refugees and migrants, both in Europe and the UK: Help Refugees, Safe Passage and the Children’s Society. Here is a guide to what they do, and why they do it.



Help Refugees

Help Refugees was founded 16 months ago by a group of friends who were moved by the refugee crisis in Calais and wanted to help. Their original plan was to raise £1,000 to buy food and clothes. In a week they had collected £56,000 and tonnes of donated goods. Within a month, with the help of local partners, Help Refugees had become the largest supplier of aid to unofficial camps in northern France, and after a year it had raised £3m. It is now one of Europe’s largest distributors of emergency aid to refugees, supporting more than 50 projects in Greece, Turkey, France and Syria.

Projects funded by Help Refugees have been feeding 20,000 people a day. Its volunteer-led programme built 1,500 shelters in the Calais camp. It has funded a mobile medical clinic in Greece and ambulances in Syria, and flown volunteer doctors to Lesbos.

Mountains of shoes, tents, coats and sleeping bags have been distributed – needed more than ever now as winter bites. It has paid for makeshift schools, community centres, and safe spaces for women. As the Observer reported this year: “There are people living now thanks to [Help Refugees] who would otherwise be dead.”

Co-founder Josie Naughton says: “Over the last year we have been working tirelessly to fill the terrifying gaps in the provision of services left by governments and large NGOs. Our remit is expanding almost on a daily basis, funding everything from baby milk distribution to search and rescue. However we never lose sight of the long-term solutions needed for fairer treatment for displaced people. ”

Dani Lawrence, Lliana Bird and Josie Naughton of Help Refugees UK. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer

Help Refugees works in partnership with an array of organisations, from Doctors of the World to grassroots operations such as l’Auberge des Migrants, Lighthouse Relief and the Refugee Youth Service. These alliances, says the charity, allow it to be both effective and agile, ensuring aid gets to where it is needed quickly without compromising the quality of service. It can respond to real-time needs, unencumbered by convention or bureaucracy.

Help Refugees runs its programmes as a charitable fund under the auspices of another charity, Prism the Gift Fund, which provides administration, finance and governance services. This partnership, it says, has helped it focus on helping refugees while keeping overheads incredibly low.



But it is the donors and volunteers who power Help Refugees. Naughton says: “Everything we do is only possible thanks to the compassion and humanity of the thousands of people who like us couldn’t stand by and do nothing in the face of the biggest humanitarian crisis since world war two.”

The Children’s Society

The UK may represent a haven for many child refugees after the hardships of their flight from home, especially for those who arrive unaccompanied by their families. But for those struggling with a new language and culture, adjusting to their new life is often lonely and stressful.

Everyday existence can be confusing and frightening. The youngsters may have no friends or possessions; it can be hard to get access to education or suitable housing; they must navigate complicated asylum legal processes and intimidating bureaucracies while coping with traumatic memories of violence, war and separation from family. Too often, there is no one to help guide them as they try to rebuild their lives.

The Children’s Society runs a network of nine programmes across England that support young refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. They provide a range of services, including legal advice and housing support, advocacy, mentoring and befriending, help with language skills, therapeutic support, social and creative activities, and life skills, from money management to relationships counselling.

“Young people fleeing war, violence and persecution need both immediate protection and long-term help to recover from the unimaginable trauma they have been through. Sadly, we know that many young refugees arriving in the UK instead find themselves facing further uncertainty, isolation and challenges that can seem insurmountable,” explains Matthew Reed, chief executive of the Children’s Society.

A Syrian family finds shelter at a refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border. Photograph: Dona Bozzi/Barcroft Images/Pacific

“Our specialist staff and volunteers are there to support them to overcome those challenges, make new friends and start to flourish in their new lives.”

Last year the society’s programmes in Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, London, Birmingham and Coventry worked with 674 children and young people. This is intensive, one-to-one work, with specialist staff spending six to eight weeks with a young person who may be facing multiple challenges. It ran 777 group work sessions on issues related to seeking asylum, including discrimination, housing and benefits.

Reed says: “Our projects are making a real difference for young refugees every day, but as increasing numbers of vulnerable young people seek safety in this country, our project workers aren’t able to help all those who desperately need them.

“The money raised by Guardian readers will be absolutely crucial, helping us reach more young refugees and migrants, giving them the support and the warm welcome they need to make sure they get the best possible start to their life in the UK.”

Safe Passage

“I can’t describe how I felt when I first saw my brother again, after two years. At that moment I felt hugely thankful to Safe Passage and everyone who had helped me.” Adnan was just 14 when, after a perilous journey from Syria followed by a traumatic five months in the squalor of the migrant camp in Calais, he was reunited with his brother – his only surviving relative – in the UK.

Adnan is now happily living with his brother and attending school in Manchester, where he is learning to speak English. For Safe Passage, Adnan’s story marks another “proud moment”, giving a child fleeing war sanctuary from harm and an opportunity to rebuild his or her life.

A child in the migrant camp in Calais. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

Safe Passage was set up in 2015 by the social action charity Citizens UK to help unaccompanied child refugees find safe and legal routes to sanctuary. “We believe every person, and particularly every child, fleeing persecution should be able to access a safe and legal route to a place they can live a full and dignified life,” says Citizens UK’s leader, Rabbi Janet Darley.

Safe Passage used a range of strategies to open new routes to safety for children, from community organising to working with parliamentarians from all major parties, such as Lord Dubs, and the MPs Yvette Cooper and Heidi Allen to amend the Immigration Act, placing legal obligations on the UK to help unaccompanied child refugees in Europe.

To date Safe Passage has reunited more than 70 child refugees and vulnerable adults with their loved ones in the UK. Its work has also helped a further 500 vulnerable unaccompanied refugee children come to Britain after the demolition of the Calais camp. Many have UK family, but dozens were brought under the terms of the Dubs amendment, which allows very vulnerable children without family in the UK to legally find safety and care here.

Today Safe Passage works with partners, including the UNHCR and a number of smaller charities, to identify unaccompanied refugee children in Greece, Italy, northern France and beyond – often on the streets, in police cells, hostels or refugee camps. Once identified, Safe Passage lays the legal groundwork to help them reach safety.

In October, Safe Passage, along with another of the Guardian and Observer appeal charities, Help Refugees, received a Liberty Human Rights award given in memory of the late MP Jo Cox, citing their “remarkable efforts” in safeguarding refugee children.

Neil Jameson, executive director of Citizens UK, says: “Guardian and Observer readers’ donations will help identify and protect unaccompanied refugee children in Europe who have a legal right to be safeguarded in the UK.

“We will fight legal cases for refugee children, and organise communities to challenge governments to set up a working system. Donations will also be used to enable our network of member organisations to provide vital support to children and families on their arrival in the UK.”

