Saturday 5th September marked the UN
International Day of Charity. Ashley Community Housing started as a charity in 2008 and
has since progressed into a fast-growing social enterprise.
Although we are no longer registered as a charity, we are
still led by the same core values we started with. We can empathise with the
work charities do as we recognise the consistent effort and passion it takes to
operate a successful charity.
In light of the UN International Day of Charity, we thought
it would be good to highlight some of the charities who tackle unemployment and
homelessness in the communities where we work.
Refugee Action
For thirty years, Refugee Action has been standing up for people who have fled persecution,
violence and harassment. They work extensively to increase asylum justice and
prevent asylum homelessness, running projects across the UK to provide advice and
support to asylum seekers.
We particularly
like the way that Refugee Action operates as a platform for asylum seekers to
have their voices heard, and the vital awareness-raising that they do around
refugee/human rights’ matters.
We often get referrals from
Refugee Action for our training services, in particular our
English My Way course and Employability Skills qualification.
Our Bristol support worker Rachel
successfully completed the Bristol Half marathon to raise money for Refugee
Action last weekend. Well done Rachel, you’ve done us proud!
Bristol Hospitality Network
They hold a weekly drop-in service that provides the asylum seekers with food, English lessons and advice.
BHN has been influential in helping to raise Bristol’s voice declaring that “Refugees are Welcome here” by helping to organise the solidarity march as part of the National Day of Action last weekend.
British Red Cross
The Red Cross is well known for its emergency response work during natural disasters and war zones. Its work is fundamental to the lives of tens of thousands of people each year.
Perhaps less well known is the work the Red Cross does in the UK supporting refugees and asylum seekers.
With the Red Cross’s services overlapping with some of the services we offer at ACH, such as our family reunion programme and their family reunion and resettlement programme, we collaborate wherever necessary to support our tenants and their service users the best we can. It helps that their Bristol office is situated across the hallway from ours!
Shelter
Shelter helps millions of people every year struggling with bad housing or homelessness by giving practical housing advice and support online, in person and by phone. Importantly, Shelter plays a vital role in campaigning to prevent bad housing and homelessness in the first place.
They also advise and train people working in the housing sector on everything from giving advice to housing law. At ACH, we often seek advice from shelter when families come to us in need of accommodation. As we only provide supported accommodation for adults we are unable to house them ourselves. Shelter provides key advice about the options families have when looking for accommodation.
Crisis
Crisis is the national charity for single homeless people, working across housing, employment, education and health and wellbeing. We partnered with Crisis in Birmingham to provide an NOCN accredited I.T. course for our tenants to increase digital inclusion and literacy amongst marginalised people.
Crisis understood our ethos in providing culturally specific services by providing us with an Arabic speaking teaching assistant, who was able to explain specific IT terminology to people on the course.
As well as running services in the community, Crisis carry out significant research into homelessness which can influence policy on a national level.
Bristol Refugee Rights
We loved seeing BristolRefugee Rights (BRR) recently on Points West with the work they are
doing for refugees in Bristol. Many of our tenants use the services at BRR’s Welcome Centre, such as free hot
meals and donated clothes. The centre is
an important space for many to socialise, ask advice and feel safe in a
familiar environment.
We like that BRR is user-led and aims to empower people
who use its services.
Thanks to all of these charities for the great work you do. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the charities we endorse or work with, especially as we work across many different sectors.We would encourage anyone to spend just a few minutes researching the causes they are most passionate about and investigate who is doing what in your local area; you may be surprised at what you find!
#charitytuesday #refugeeswelcome
#UN
No comments:
Post a Comment