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Asylum Welcome’s Youth Work Project provides support, advice and activities for unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people, who are living in Oxford without family. Through individual support and group activities, staff and volunteers help to provide a ‘safe space’ where these highly vulnerable young people can relax, enjoy contact with responsible and caring adults, receive practical advice and assistance, and be helped to gain confidence and engage with their local community

100%
Categories

  • Animals Animals
  • Health/Wellbeing Health/​Wellbeing
  • Human Rights/Advocacy Human Rights/​Advocacy
  • Sports/Recreation Sports/​Recreation
  • Beneficiaries

    • Children (3-18) Children (3-18)
    • Young People (18-30) Young People (18-30)

    Situation

    Unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people are highly vulnerable. They arrive in Britain without their natural family, and are faced with an alien culture and language. Many have lost family members in traumatic circumstances, or have experienced conflict and violence. They may also have suffered a very frightening journey to this country, often in the back of a lorry, and lasting several days or weeks. Those over the age of 16 are placed in multi-occupancy housing with limited adult supervision from a social worker. New arrivals often face bullying and discrimination at school and within their neighbourhoods, and most feel isolated and excluded from community life. Without parental care or positive adult role models, they are at risk of exploitation by others, and of slipping into truancy, anti-social behaviour and petty crime. We aim to help 120-150 asylum-seeking young people a year in Oxford to achieve more security, stability and confidence through the provision of positive adult support and role models, so they will be enabled to attend school regularly, undertake continuing education or find employment after leaving school, fill their leisure time constructively, manage their asylum claim, and access the services they need and are entitled to.The youth work programme focuses the majority of its work on the highly vulnerable unaccompanied 16+ young people who are not in foster care. We provide a weekly club and other leisure activities - while we hope in the long-term that young people will gain sufficient confidence to join in with general activities in the community, experience has taught us that these clubs provide a vital haven for young people who might be new arrivals in Oxford, or would find it impossible to join community activities because of problems over language, culture and bullying. They also provide an environment where they can build relationships with supportive adults. We also run the extremely popular`All Nations Footbal Project, which meets weekly for training, and plays in local friendlies and tournaments with other clubs.We also run holidays in the summer, and encourage young peopleto take part in local cultural and community events that help them to gain confidence to make their voices heard, and to make a positive contribution to the local community. These activities are complemented by our drop in advice service where young people can come in to seek advice or support whether emotional or practical. Many of these young people have reached their 18th birthday and need help to cope with the difficult transition in their legal and financial status. However, they also bring a wide range of other problems relating to their immigration status, their accommodation, their relationship with their social worker, employment, further education, boredom and isolation, debt and money management, mental health problems, to name but a few. 2 Youth Workers - 5 day pw total £26,680 Staff training and travel £ 1,700 Volunteer expenses £ 500 Youth groups and activities £ 7,000 Emergency grant fund £ 500 Total £35,780 We have so raised £15,500 towards this budget in 2008/09

    Solution

    100%
    Categories

  • Animals Animals
  • Health/Wellbeing Health/​Wellbeing
  • Human Rights/Advocacy Human Rights/​Advocacy
  • Sports/Recreation Sports/​Recreation
  • Beneficiaries

    • Children (3-18) Children (3-18)
    • Young People (18-30) Young People (18-30)