October 2020 Newsletter

GETTING TO KNOW OUR NETWORK

It's been a couple of months since our inaugural JRAN Forum and we wanted to reach out to the network.

Steering Group member Zina Smith wrote about the two days if you want to remind yourselves of how much ground we covered and re-watch some of our wonderful speakers. JRAN is a network of refugee organisations and we want to help and support the work that everyone does. We are aiming to send out monthly newsletters so if your organisation is working on something that needs support from others, if you have a campaign that you'd like to share or if you think the network can support you then please be in touch and we can add it the next time we send something out. To be able to support everyone in the best way possible we'd like to get to know our network a little better. To that end we've put a (very short) questionnaire together so we can get a sense of who came along to the Forum. It will take less than five minutes to complete so please help us if you can. Please fill out our questionnaire here.

JRAN UPDATES, OPPORTUNITIES & ACTIONS

REFUGEE TRAUMA INITIATIVE is recruiting a freelance supervisor or group therapist with lived experience of being a refugee to co-facilitate a therapeutic supervision group for a group of recently recruited psychosocial workers, who are currently asylum seekers or refugees themselves. There is more information about the role here. If you are interested, or know someone who might be, let me know and I will put you in touch with Gabriella. SAFE PASSAGE is recruiting for three new positions onto their Board of Trustees. Two are for young people with lived experience of seeking refuge and one is for the Chair of the Board. Safe Passage are looking for people aged 18-30 from refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds. The deadline for applications is 18th October. More information, role description and application form can be found here. WRITE TO A PEER An amendment on safe and legal routes is currently going through the House of Lords. The amendment is asking for a new safe and legal route in Europe and to protect family reunion for child refugees. With the closure of the Dubs scheme, there is currently no safe and legal route for unaccompanied children in Greece to be able to come to the UK and, if the government does not strengthen protections for family reunification, soon children with family in the UK will not have a legal route here either. The amendment for safe and legal routes is passing through the Lords and being voted on in the next two weeks. Safe Passage have created a "write to a peer" tool so that people who want to get involved in this issue can write to a member of the House of Lords about the issue the link is here. SAFE PASSAGE YOUNG LEADERS PROGRAMME IS EXPANDING These wonderful young leaders spoke at our JRAN Forum. They are a group of young people (16-25) from refugee backgrounds who want to speak out and make change. The group meets every Tuesday at 6pm (currently on Zoom). They take part in workshops and sessions to develop skills in campaigning, public speaking, confidence building and creative skills. It's lots of fun! If you know someone who might be interested please be in touch and we will connect you with Ruth at Safe Passage.

KICKSTART WITH JRAN - GET A FREE EMPLOYEE!

The Department for Work and Pensions recently launched the "Kickstart" scheme, which will fully fund organisations to offer six month contracts to 18-24 year olds currently not in work. They will refund all costs including salary, National Insurance and statutory contributions and offer an additional budget of £1500 to cover any training, support or equipment the new employee might need. These roles can be in any part of the organisation that needs help - social media, admin, finance or wherever - and can be home or office based. Funding can be accessed by groups of employers who together can offer 30+ placements, so if you'd like to participate, or just find out more, please email Resa Galgut - resa@88keysconsulting.co.uk who is currently putting together a consortium. This could be a great opportunity for a young person to get a foot on the career ladder and for your charity to get some help at no extra cost. We have arranged for places to be available for JRAN members so act fast and don't miss out!

THIS IS YOUR NETWORK

If you have ideas or thoughts or something that you'd like to share with the network then please do be in touch and email Juliet at jointrefugeeactionnetwork@gmail.com. We're looking forward to hearing from you and to seeing JRAN grow and develop.

We have set up a Steering Group and working groups which are looking at ways to address some of the key issues that arose from the Forum. If you'd like to be involved in either of those we'd love to hear from you. Thank you again for taking a few minutes to fill out our survey and we'll be in touch again soon.