North Wales refugee charity celebrates first birthday with fundraising events

Refugee Kindness - North Wales was set up in Wrexham last year and is busier than ever, preparing to support refugee families coming to North Wales from Afghanistan in addition to its other work.

Charity founder and chair of trustees, Rachel Watkin said they had successfully raised over £5,000 through a raffle, which was drawn in September, and over £700 through a cake sale.

She added that this could be a very busy year for them, however, and so they were looking to raise even more money. with refugee families from Afghanistan expected to arrive in North Wales in the near future.

Rachel Watkin and Jordan Hughes from the Refugee Kindness charity

Rachel Watkin said: "Over the last year, we have supported almost 60 refugee and asylum seeking families across North Wales through assisting them in receiving donations of household items that they would not otherwise be able to afford from our generous local donors. We also help support the families in enabling them to access other local services and through befriending them.

"We have organised coffee mornings, a party in the park, a mini online eisteddfod for them to showcase their skills and most recently sewing classes run by a local Syrian dressmaker who has set up her business in Wrexham.

"For nine months, the charity was run entirely by volunteers. However, we have realised that as we have grown, we need formal governance, training and supervising in place. It was not sustainable to continue on this basis and we have needed to appoint a formal manager and take on a lock up unit to store the donated items pending delivery.

"Having done such amazing work over the last year, we now need to fundraise to ensure our survival. Whilst we have received several unexpected gratuitous donations for which we are massively grateful and which have enabled us to survive this far, we feel that we need to do more to encourage more people to help.

"So, we have just raised £5,665 from a raffle which shows how people want to come together to support refugees and we held an amazing cake sale which raised £702 on a rainy day in Wrexham. We have also received an extra £1,500 corporate donation but we need to do more as we are conscious that this could be a really busy year. We are already planning to reach out to more refugee families across the other counties. We do have families we support in Rhyl and Colwyn Bay but we know that there are more that we could help and we also need to be ready for families who may come from Afghanisation.

"We will welcome them and whilst they will receive the basics from the authorities, we will be here to help them integrate and to facilitate the donations of those extra items to them to help make their houses into homes and to ensure that they feel welcome.

"It has restored our faith in human nature to see how many people are happy to support us, particularly now that we are looking forward to welcoming the Afghan families in the next few weeks. Whilst we understand that a number of refugee families are being brought to the area, we are also anticipating that there may be an influx of people who have managed to make it to the UK under their own steam ad who may be housed in North Wales."

Donations of household items

She added that the charity was particularly keen to receive donations of items such as rugs, cushions and memory foam mattresses, primarily to sit on, along with good quality bedding for the winter and possibly other furniture.

Rachel said: "It is very important to us at Refugee Kindness that, where possible, we allow the families to choose items that are to their tastes and, for this reason, we don't try to second guess what they will need or want by taking items into storage, for example, some don't want formal sofas or beds but prefer mattresses on the floor. Therefore, we ask donors to put photos of their items on our Facebook group, so that they can then be chosen and delivered.

Wrexham Council has offered to find accommodation for up to 10 refugee families from Afghanistan, as part of the Afghan Resettlement and Assistance Programme. These Afghan families' lives are at risk because they have supported Western military forces in Afghanistan.

Flintshire Council is also working to offer assistance to refugees.

Flintshire Council’s chief officer for housing and assets, Neal Cockerton, said: “The council recognises its duties and obligations to this group of refugees and is working with a number of agencies and private landlords to identify suitable accommodation to place people impacted by this crisis. It is a fast moving situation which will require a wide range of support from a number of partners. We have a strong background of assisting and supporting refugees in our local communities and have done so for many years and more particularly with our Syrian refugee programme and will apply this learning and good work to this new situation.”