Asylum Welcome

Tina Leonard

Asylum Welcome’s mission is simple: we aim to make Oxfordshire a safe, welcoming, and inclusive community for asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants.

As a local not-for-profit we address a critical gap in the support available for our vulnerable clients by providing a wraparound support service that is uniquely client-led. We advocate for, empower, and advise every individual so that our support is tailored to every client’s varied, complex, and unique needs.

Our work is growing in importance every day in this current climate of governmental hostility and the increasingly complex and opaque immigration legal system. In recent months alone we have welcomed more than six hundred new arrivals, and the number of people we are supporting annually has almost doubled to more than three thousand clients.

The demand for our help shows no sign of slowing, but with few additional resources, no notice of new arrivals and little to no funding from local councils or the Home Office for this work, our ability to fully support those who need it, is constantly being challenged.

At the core of our work is the belief that everyone deserves to live safely and freely, regardless of who they are or where they come from. We are working to make this happen by providing essential services to help our clients navigate the many difficulties they face, this includes legal advice; language assistance; employment and education assistance; accessing crucial mental and physical health services; combatting homelessness by helping to find suitable accommodation; and providing funds to ensure clients are well fed, have essential hygiene items, suitable clothes and access to activities, phones and bikes that all increase their quality of living.

The asylum system may be broken, but that will not stop us from providing the essential care and support our clients need in these truly difficult times. Our goal continues to be building a community where asylum seekers, refugees, and vulnerable migrants feel safe and loved members of our compassionate community.

We will continue to work towards a future where our clients can exercise their rights and have their cases fairly considered; where they can live freely and safely; access crucial services easily; share their talents and achieve their goals, and where ultimately, they can feel at home.

This Month’s Forty-Three Newsletter Contents

• June 2023
• Narrated Newsletter June 2023
• The Challenge of Poverty
• Artists, Correspondents, and Photographers
• Monthly Appeal June 2023
• The Christian Story
• “Why Walk When You Can Dance?”
• A Letter from Banbury and Chipping Norton Amnesty Group
• Oxford Quaker & Answer
• Happy News
• Adwoa Burnley – Yearly Meeting Epistle 2023
• The Courage to be a Quaker
• From Quaker Faith & Practice 26.50
• Meetings for Worship June 2023

Back to June 2023 Newsletter Main Page

Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 530 • June 2023
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org

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