Rebuilding Lives and Renewing Hope in High Wycombe

Wycombe Refugee Partnership (WRP) help Rebuild Lives and Renew Hope. By acting together with love and kindness, they have offered support to displaced people in and around High Wycombe. For refugees, the main aim is to house people in urgent need, with no financial or support networks in the UK. They house families in our halfway home and offer a holistic support package. Once someone in the house holds a sufficient wage, they pay for their deposit and first month’s rent for private rental accommodation. The ultimate goal is for refugees to become self-sufficient and build their confidence in their new community.

Since Covid, Wycombe Refugee Partnership have doubled their reach. They now also support the asylum seeker community and those who are legally allowed in the UK but without the right to work. Their main aim is to relieve them of some of the financial and social turmoil endured fleeing from unimaginable hardship. The team also help help people to build their confidence in their new community. They offer a Community Response Initiative, Digital Connectivity Scheme, and Hardship and Access Fund.

The Edith M Ellis Charitable Trust recently supplied a very generous donation. The funding went towards a Hardship and Access Fund offering financial support and wellbeing activities to asylum seekers, and some refugees, in and around High Wycombe. As part of the Activities Stream, helping school-aged children to join extra-curricular sports clubs, this funding helped young people to join a local swim club. Children have been able to reclaim some of their childhood, learn a new skill, and make friends.

[Refugee family in High Wycombe]

Through the Hardship stream of this fund, the Edith M Ellis Charitable Trust helped with emergency costs for asylum seekers. At the end of July 2022, the UK Home Office asylum seeker allowance increased from £45 per week to £47.39 per week to reflect heightening national costs. This increase does not align with inflation. To put rising costs into perspective, the Office for National Statistics found that the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by 12.2% in the year to September 2023 (ONS, 2023). Asylum seekers are left incredibly vulnerable to the cost-of-living crisis, especially when asylum claims are still taking years to process leaving people without the right to work and be financially independent.

Therefore, the majority of this life-changing funding went towards food packages and supermarket vouchers. The money helped those on constrained budgets to prioritise spending on other livelihood essentials, such as toiletries, WIFI and school uniforms.

One of the refugee families who have received support is from Turkey. A mother and her daughters had to flee to safety and waited for more than 2.5 years in the UK to get their refugee status. During this time, the mother was not allowed to work. She was restricted on crippling Home Office asylum allowance. They recently benefited from Edith M Ellis Charitable Trust funding and shared:

‘I have been going through the hardest years of my life since 2016. I’m grateful that thanks to the nice people I met we were able to solve many problems and meet many of our needs. I would like to thank you [Wycombe Refugee Partnership] endlessly for guiding me and helping me meet the many needs of my daughters and me. You have provided us with the convenience of being able to get help that I have not even thought of yet, no matter what, by just writing a message. I pray that God will reward you with better things for all the help you have provided.’

Due to the support and welcoming community of High Wycombe, this family are now settled and happy in our local community. The mother gives back to her new community once a week through volunteering. Her children have been successfully progressing through school.They have made new friends at their local swim club. Through the Hardship and Access Fund, families like this are able to safely rebuild their lives and begin a more hopeful future.

From all of Wycombe Refugee Partnership, we cannot thank the Edith M Ellis Charitable Trust enough. They’ve been invaluable for prioritising the needs of refugees and asylum seekers in our local community.