Contact your MP and ask them to support the UK's participation in the UNHCR Syrian Refugee Programme

Please write to your MP and ask them to attend the debate in Parliament on Wednesday 29 January on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Syrian Refugee Programme and vote in support of the UK’s participation.

There has been a lot of talk in the press around how helping a few, a few hundred, or a few thousand will not solve this crisis and this is true. But  if you're that one family who gets the medical attention, the education for their child or the secure housing it will mean the world.

Even though we don't work in the area and cannot do anything to help we have desperate people contacting us on a regular basis. They have fled their homes, lost their livelihoods and are seeing their children's futures put at risk.

Some of the enquiries we have received have included:

• A woman alone with four children. Their father is studying for his PhD in the UK
• A lady working in the UK who's family are in a refugee camp
• A Syrian father and torture victim struggling with his family reunion claim and fearing for his family's lives in the interim
• A Syrian father who has been granted indefinite leave to remain and cannot afford the visa and solicitors to bring his family here 
• A family who's in laws are living in temporary accommodation in Egypt
• A family in Lebanon who cannot afford the costs of their temporary accommodation
• A man with 6 family members in Lebanon living in difficult conditions. The family includes a four month old baby, a three year old and a pregnant lady
• A family in Damascus who cannot access medical care for their child with a mother with health problems. The father told me they did not eat yesterday

We are a tiny charity and sadly have no options to offer them and can only give our sympathy.

The overwhelming message from Syrians is that the international community is ignoring their crisis. The UK taking any number of refugees would demonstrate we are not ignorant to their plight.

Please act now 

Benefits sanctions will hit most vulnerable non English speakers the hardest

George Osborne’s proposals to sanction benefits for those who are claiming Jobseekers Allowance and refuse to attend mandated English language courses will be destructive to our client’s attempts to make a new life for themselves and their families in the UK.

Families entering the UK under family reunion policy are arriving after one or more member has suffered persecution. Parents have been separated from children for years at a time when they most need each other’s support.

Placing more conditions on entitlement to Jobseekers allowance will push even more newly arrived families further into poverty. Negotiating the complexities of benefit entitlement already means that some families are living off a single person’s benefits for weeks after they arrive.

Those arriving under family reunion have already suffered and their arrival in the UK should be an opportunity for them to recover. Mandatory English courses would place unneccessary strain on families at a time when they’re least able to cope.

Contrary to popular belief refugees coming to the UK want to work. Many are surprised that they receive benefits and some do voluntary work to help themselves feel more comfortable about taking the handouts.

Noone is denying that learning English will be instrumental in enabling refugees find paid employment but if Osborne wants people to get themselves into work maybe he should make it look at the difficulties already faced by so many in trying to access ESOL courses. Those seeking asylum have to wait 6 months before becoming eligible for only funding for half the costs, a spouse who’s partner is working has to wait a year before becoming eligible for co-funding..

Sanctioning benefits based on English course attendance won’t force people with poor English skills into work it will push them further into isolation and hamper their efforts to integrate into their new community. 

UNHCR starts screening of refugees entitled to family reunion

Refugees at Mae La Refugee camp on the Thai Burma border with relatives resettled I third countries are about to be screened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Thailand to see if they are eligible to be resettled.

It is estimated that there are as many as 52,000 people living at the Mae La refugee camp that is located in the Tha Song Yang District of Thailand’s Tak Province. Many refugees have family member who have been resettled to a third country. Read more

Red Cross Report on Family Reunion

Report on the importance of family reunion services and provision in the UK.

Read the full report here

"Family important for wider societal wellbeing and separation can affect integration
– UNHCR resettlement handbook: “[Family separation] may
also create serious obstacles to a refugee’s integration in a
new country, and the realization of family unity is considered
an important aspect of all durable solutions”."

Refugee Week: Family Reunion

A Family Reunion

P and her family are recognised refugees in the UK. P instructed Brighton Housing Trust to assist  her in making an application for her mother who had a serious eye condition to join the family in the UK.... Read more here

http://andywinterbht.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/refugee-week-family-reunion/

Hungarian refugee waits 56 years to see his family after fleeing to the United States

Though they were apart for 56 years, Molnar and his family quickly made up for lost time...

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/the_intelligencer_news/a-family-reunion-years-in-the-making/article_7b81c890-3693-5935-ae30-2610fe726528.html

Read the full Red Cross report online here

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4f9fcc602.html