Government support for refugees is scant, but charities and faith groups around the UK are working hard to provide a safety net

In what was once a vicar’s living room, tucked behind a church in Newcastle upon Tyne, three-year-old Farah Alhrahshi chose from a crate of plastic toys while her mother, Kafa, picked through racks of secondhand clothing for anything warm and roughly the right size.

“All the clothes we have come from here,” she said, gesturing at her outfit.

‘Here’ is the West End Refugee Service (WERS), one of hundreds of groups and initiatives that have become more and more crucial in providing support to asylum seekers and refugees in the face of scant government involvement.

The charity has supported more than 500 asylum seekers and refugees from about 50 countries over the past year. As well as sorting donated clothing, bedding and household essentials, volunteers were dispensing advice and emergency payments in the privacy of smaller rooms. In the kitchen, a help-yourself box of donated bread was swiftly depleted.



In 2016, 38,517 people claimed asylum in the UK. While they wait for their asylum claims to be processed they are unable to work and are provided with accommodation and £36.95 per person per week for everything else, including food.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Farah Alhrahshi, three, with her mother Kafa at the West End Refugee Service. Photograph: Mark Pinder/The Guardian

It is here that faith groups and charities have stepped in to plug the gap. Some projects are unaffiliated; many have sprung from churches, mosques and synagogues, or are coalitions of the faithful and people of no faith. But the common thing is their universality – wherever there is a local authority that houses asylum seekers, chances are there will be at least one charity or a faith group that supports them.

For almost all, it’s a hand-to-mouth operation. Despite being well-established and highly regarded, the WERS has been dealt a “devastating blow”, in the words of its founder and director Lindsay Cross, by the rejection in December of its bid for a £300,000 grant from Big Lottery Fund, hitherto one of its main funders.

“We have had to review our funding strategy and launch a public appeal,” said Cross. “The response has been amazing, but we have a mountain to climb. Over the past five years we have seen a real reduction in capacity in Newcastle, but meanwhile we are getting busier and busier. The whole sector is at breaking point.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lindsay Cross. Photograph: Mark Pinder/The Guardian

The WERS was formed in 1999. It is one of the bigger refugee support services, with eight paid staff and about 60 volunteers. At the smaller end of the spectrum is the Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation, where a handful of volunteers run English classes for asylum seekers and refugees at the Neve Shalom synagogue.

It has operated for two years almost entirely on small donations, although it had a grant from the Church of England’s Near Neighbours programme.

The classes run for 90 minutes, “but people tend to come early and stay late. For some of them, it’s the only thing they do all week,” said a volunteer, Claire Jackson.

The volunteers help with letter writing and finding solicitors, but – just as importantly – offer the hand of friendship. “They are afraid and anxious,” said Jackson. “They know us all and feel safe and comfortable here.”

The former art teacher’s father escaped the Holocaust, while most of his family were killed in Auschwitz and other death camps. “My father was an asylum seeker too, and his life was saved by Christian women who risked their own lives to help him. When you hear this as a child, it shapes you. You have got to do something for those who need help,” she said.

At the Sanctuary in Newport, south Wales, volunteers are driven by a Christian ethos of helping one’s neighbours, said part-time worker Dylan Moore. “It’s fundamental – it’s why we do what we do.” But, he stressed, the project – which grew out of the non-denominational Bethel community church almost 10 years ago – “is open to all faiths and none. We don’t proselytise.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The WERS provides clothing, bedding and household essentials to refugees and asylum seekers. Photograph: Mark Pinder/The Guardian

The services it offers – including English classes, games nights, drop-in sessions, advocacy support and hot meals – depend on donations and volunteers. “We scrabble around on a shoestring budget,” said Moore. “We’re doing an awful lot on a little bit of money and a lot of love.”

Although he said the government could do better, especially by adopting a more humanitarian approach to the process of seeking asylum, “it’s too easy to criticise them. The government has to pull off a difficult balancing act.”

According to Paul Hackwood, executive director of the Church Urban Fund, which runs the Near Neighbours programme, the government has supported the idea that local communities are better placed to provide support services than state institutions – and, crucially, has stumped up funds.

Eighty per cent of the Near Neighbours’ £1.5m annual budget comes from the Department for Communities and Local Government. In the past three years, Near Neighbours has given grants to almost 200 local asylum seeker and refugee projects run by a mix of faith-based, inter-faith and no-faith groups.

The C of E, said Hackwood, was particularly well placed to offer support. “The church has a good network at a local level, with a presence in every parish. It’s much more deeply embedded in communities than state institutions. And lots of asylum seekers and refugees are more comfortable with community and faith organisations than government initiatives.”

David Walker, the bishop of Manchester, has less praise for the government’s role. The response of local communities has been amazing, he said. “But a lot of what’s being done is in the teeth of lukewarm assistance from national government. They are not putting their foot on the accelerator.”

In Newcastle, some of those helping today’s refugees and asylum seekers have been through the process themselves. Musa Hassan Ali came to the UK in 2002 from Rwanda, and now works full-time at the WERS.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Musa Hassan Ali. Photograph: Mark Pinder/The Guardian

“Looking at my life, it’s important for me to help others in a similar situation,” he said. “It’s not just practical support; the emotional side is very important. They need a safe environment, and they really depend on what we can offer. If the project had to close, it would be terrifying.”

This project is funded by the European Journalism Centre via a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation