Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees – September update

We’re sharing Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees monthly update here, mainly because we feature so heavily in it! Thank you WWR and keep up the excellent work.

Let’s Get Children Online

Have you recently upgraded your laptop, tablet, smartphone or printer? Your older model can be an invaluable resource for refugee children in Wandsworth.

Katherine Low Settlement has distributed laptops to many families during lockdown. These can really change children’s lives – and even help family harmony! One Year 10 boy who lives with his single mum and three sisters said: “I was fighting with my sisters for an old computer to do my online schoolwork… every week I was missing some deadlines and sending sometimes incomplete work which got me in trouble with the teachers”. 

After seven year old Hadas received her laptop, her mother said, “there’s less tension between her and her younger brother… and she is a happy girl now, she does reading practice, uses BBC Bitesize and plays maths games”.

There are still many children in refugee families with no access to this technology.

Please email [email protected] if you can donate a device.

Meet Our New Committee Members!

We’ve had some changes to the WWR committee. We’d like to thank our wonderful chair Ellie for all her hard work and welcome our new members!

Cheryl – Chair: Cheryl has been supporting refugees in Wandsworth for a decade. This has included a number of volunteer roles with CARAS, including the after school club, teaching English classes and mentoring with KLS’ Love to Learn team. She’s also been out to Calais a number of times with Just Shelter and is involved with the NGOs out there. Cheryl really enjoys all the work she does and is looking forward to using her skills to develop the work WWR does in supporting refugees and local charities in the borough!

Ashley – Sanctuary Lead: Ashley comes to us with a background of migration work and a passion for supporting marginalised communities. She recently spent five years working in Kenya and Uganda with refugee youth supporting everything from educational programs to refugee artists to the refugee Olympics team. She hopes that she can bring this passion to the team at Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees and help Wandsworth become a Borough of Sanctuary.

Nicola – Social Media Coordinator: As a Kiwi, Nicola knows all too well the difficulties of moving your life to another country. She didn’t have the added challenges that refugees face so she’s keen to support them through that difficult time as much as possible. Nicola is a communications professional who volunteers with numerous charities that support disadvantaged people and looks forward to working with WWR to help those in the area.

Battersea in Lockdown – Get Involved

All the wonderful refugee support organisations in Wandsworth have found ways to sustain refugees during lockdown. In Battersea, Katherine Low Settlement (KLS) swung into action to support families, children and older people with online activities and telephone support. Over the summer, while schools were closed, KLS ran their homework clubs online. 106 children participated regularly in arts and crafts, cooking, sport and wellbeing activities. More school support and outdoor activities are planned. KLS also has an Elders group which is looking for volunteer telephone befrienders – contact [email protected]

If you can join the volunteers and donate time, money or computers (see WWR computer collection service) please click here.

Take Action This Month!

  1. Click hereto watch Care for Calais’ new video series.
  2. Click hereto read Safe Passage’s call to accept unaccompanied children.
  3. Click hereto get in touch with your MP about safe and legal passages.
  4. Click hereto email a peer about saving refugee family reunion.
  5. Click hereto volunteer with the Refugee Community Kitchen in Calais.

Support our family

We are committed to building stronger communities and enabling people to challenge themselves and find ways out of isolation through our varied community projects. There are so many ways you can support our work and help us to deliver our services to even more people.

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