About Us

Each year, Positive Action in Housing supports over 4,000 people from refugee and migrant backgrounds as they rebuild their lives after crisis.

Since 1995, we have provided humanitarian aid to refugees from wars including Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine as well as those fleeing persecution.

Since 2023, we have been supporting Palestinians from Gaza, and helped nine Palestinians, including children, to leave Gaza in 2024.

The Gaza Appeal

We have all seen the livestreamed images from Gaza—children pulled lifeless from rubble, mass graves filling daily, and families facing starvation and repeated displacement from so-called safe zones. As UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini warns: “Under our watch, Gaza has become a graveyard of children and a place of starvation for its people.”

Since October 2023, at least 60,000 Palestinians have been documented as killed. Two-thirds are women and children. Hundreds of thousands more have been injured, and thousands have undergone amputations in collapsing hospitals without anaesthesia. 1,580 Medics and health care workers have been killed. 228 journalists have so far been killed.

UN reports state that 80% of Gaza is now unrecognisable. Over 1.7 million people—three-quarters of the population—are displaced. Famine is tightening its grip, with infants dying of malnutrition and dehydration in tents and bombed-out hospitals.

Many of the Palestinian families we support are living this nightmare from afar. They are mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives—desperate for news of loved ones enduring unimaginable hardship. Others have found safety in Scotland or the UK but face immense challenges rebuilding their lives.

The funds raised through this appeal will directly help Palestinian families and individuals resettling in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK, as well as their loved ones still trapped in Gaza.

We will update this page with how we are helping and a separate report will be provided in our annual impact report in 2025-26.

100% donation policy

100% of your donation will go directly to supporting Palestinians in Gaza. It will help pay for food, water, medicine, and baby formula for families under siege.

Your donation also support those resettling in Scotland to rebuild their lives with dignity. Through our Palestine Fund, we offer resettlement support for those starting again after fleeing trauma; family reunion; Crisis vouchers for food, clothing, SIM cards, bus passes and shelter through our Room for Refugees programme.

Any gift aid raised from your donation will support our general charitable work to help homeless or destitute refugees. See our annual impact reports here and stories of the people we directly support.

Together, we can bring relief, dignity, and a sense of humanity where it is needed most.

This appeal is inspired by the life and legacy of Revd Brian Shackleton, a deeply compassionate Methodist minister who left a generous gift in his will to support our work with Palestinian and Syrian refugees. Brian witnessed first-hand the daily indignities of occupation: checkpoints, home demolitions, children walking miles for water. His lifelong dedication to justice lives on in this fund, supporting Palestinians in Gaza and those forced to start again far from home.