In February 2018, Refugees Welcome Haringey re-launched as Haringey Welcome. Whilst we continue to support refugees arriving in the borough, our new campaign focuses on the government’s current hostile environment policy and it’s specific manifestations in the area.  Head over to our new website and sign our pledge to make our Borough an inclusive, just and safer place for all migrants. You can find our new site here: haringeywelcome.org.

 

 

Refugees Welcome Haringey is a group of local residents who since 2015 have been campaigning to defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. We support efforts to resettle Syrian refugees in our borough, as well as unaccompanied refugee children from across Europe and camps in the Middle East and North Africa. We oppose the government’s hostile environment policy – legislation aimed at undocumented migrants with precarious immigration status.

     

SMALL VICTORIES: Thanks to our efforts in late 2016 Haringey council committed to the resettling of ten vulnerable Syrian families, and the first family arrived in our borough in Summer 2017.  All the families are resettled via the Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement scheme – funded by central Government – and housed in private sector accommodation. Voluntary and Community Sector organisations and residents from across the borough are ready to provide support.

THE FUTURE:  Now that this first small victory has been achieved, we have decided to widen our focus and directly campaign against the hostile environment policy. This policy targets failed asylum seekers, vulnerable non-EU migrants, and has even begun to target some EU migrants (those who become homeless). It can also impact BME citizens’ rights and access to services, and, post-Brexit, the same measures could be extended to include all EU migrants.

The hostile environment is designed to hit at the heart of local communities, co-opting ordinary citizens (doctors, teachers, landlords, etc) as proxy border controllers. and impacting access for the most vulnerable to healthcare, education, housing, and local government services. As such, it ultimately affects all of us as it threatens community cohesion and wellbeing.
We are therefore promoting three campaigns in our community in Haringey:
Docs not Cops – resist NHS charges and immigration checks of patients
Schools ABC – #BoycottSchoolCensus immigration questions
Immigration enforcement and poor service by Haringey Council’s Social Services to families with no recourse to public funds
                    
If you’d like to offer help or practical support for any of the above, such as writing to/visiting your local councillors, distributing leaflets, helping to organise an event, offering useful skills, please visit the GET INVOLVED page and select INDIVIDUALS. Or if you would like to attend one of our meetings to find out more,  drop us an email at refugeeswelcomeharingey@gmail.com.

RWH also continues to call for landlords who would like to provide a property for a Syrian refugee family in Haringey to come forward.  If you have a property and would like to offer accommodation to a Syrian family there is information here on how the scheme works and how to contact the Council. If you have some spare time and would be interested to befriend a family, or have a particular skill such as ESOL teaching, or Arabic-English interpreting, that you would be willing to offer for a few hours a week as a volunteer, please email refugeeswelcomeharingey@gmail.com

If you would like to donate to help us in our effort to help refugee families please click on the Donate button


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