Thank you for visiting our Justgiving page!
Wondering what we are doing and why?
In a large multi-purpose room in South London, passionate teachers hand out worksheets, encourage their pupils to attempt the exercises, caringly correct and raptuously applaud success. This is an English language class like we'd hope to find anywhere. Only, the teachers teaching here have no computers, no projectors and hardly any paper.
The resources the teachers use they have collected themselves. The white boards are exhausted and whiteboard cleaner is hard to find.
Their pupils - often in their teens - are also not your average foreign language students either...they are refugees.
These young people learning here have fled their home countries having survived unimaginable experiences - ethnic cleansing, bereavement, torture and terror - and have experienced severe hardship and trauma before reaching the UK.
The Day Centre is one of 5 across the country run predominantly by volunteers of The Refugee Council, the leading charity in the UK working to support the refugees who enter this country. The charity’s facilities also include the One Stop Service which provides advice to refugees, a specialist mental health team, children’s services, amongst others - all desperately in need of funding and supplies.
People have said this is an unpopular cause in uncertain times but never ones to back down from a challenge 19 employees from The Guardian have taken up the task of raising £5000 for the Refugee Council to improve their Day Centres and support the work done with 'age-disputed children'. Many children have no documentary evidence to prove their age and a significant proportion - some as young as 14 - may be treated as adults, placed in adult accommodation or in detention centres.
Most of us have no sales experience but on the 18th of May, we will spend the day working against the clock to secure as many cash donations and gifts in kind from the Refugee Council's "wish list" as possible...anyone have 300 tubs of moisturiser?! If you did answer 'yes' to that question or think you can help with the wish list, please email sara.linfoot@guardian.co.uk
This appeal is not only about the refugees, but also about making sure that the people who work with them are best equipped to do so. It is about treating people as human beings first and then refugees.
Please help us by donating through Justgiving. It is quick, easy, totally secure and the most efficient way to sponsor us: Refugee Council gets your money faster and, if you’re a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.
So please sponsor us now!
For more information about the Refugee Council, please watch this very short BBC documentary, presented by Mariella Frostrup.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diAmpQm3T5Y
In The Guardian's Refugee Council fundraising team are: Sara Linfoot, Paula Stanford, Charlie Vincent, Amanpreet Dhother, Amjad Hussain, Angela Skupin, Kirsten Buckley, Charlie Wilkie, Declan Foley, Eliza Anyangwe, Katharina Kirchner, Emma Regester, Heather Skillington, James Rogers, Steve Colmer, Matthew Perkins, Traci Smith, Richard Gracey and Paul Lancaster
Raised:
65%
Raised so far: £3,257.42
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Donation by Mark Tran on 13/05/09 |
£20.00 + £5.64 Gift Aid |
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good cause Donation by ejb on 13/05/09 |
£30.00 + £8.46 Gift Aid |
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Donation by Concerned on 13/05/09 |
£25.00 + £7.05 Gift Aid |
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Donation by Catherine Cronin on 13/05/09 |
£20.00 + £5.64 Gift Aid |
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Donation by Mia Hansson on 13/05/09 |
£10.00 + £2.82 Gift Aid |
| * Total raised online: | £2,096.42 |
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| Offline donations: | £1,161.00 |
| Mobile donations: | £0.00 |
| Total Raised: | £3,257.42 |
| Gift Aid plus supplement: | £506.68 |
* Charities pay a small fee for our service.
Find out
how much it is and what we do for it.