Posted on: March 6, 2024
For Women’s History Month, we are spotlighting ‘Women for Refugee Women’, a registered charity who work to help women seeking asylum and refuge. We spoke to Carenza Arnold, Communications Director for the charity, about what work they have been doing and how folks can get involved with the cause.
How long have you been going?
Women for Refugee Women has existed for over 16 years and has supported thousands of refugee women in this time to rebuild their lives; to share their experiences and stories to the media, at events, and through the arts; built a strong community of compassionate and committed activists; and achieved real change to the asylum system in the UK.
Women for Refugee Women supports women seeking safety in the UK to rebuild their lives on their terms. Our creative and educational activities, such as English, drama or yoga, provide a warm and welcoming space where women can connect, build friendships and develop their skills and confidence.
We centre the women in our network in everything that we do. Through supporting women to share their experiences to a wide range of audiences, we seek to build empathy and understanding, and to ultimately make change to build a fair and compassionate asylum system for women seeking safety.
Every woman who is forced to cross borders for her safety deserves a chance to rebuild her life.
What has been the greatest reward since being with the charity?
The greatest rewards are in the everyday: Witnessing women grow from being shy and speaking little English, to performing original poetry to a huge audience; hearing news of women being granted their refugee status after a long wait; women progressing into college, university or employment; dancing and laughing together often.
We work in an extremely hostile environment and the women in our network have survived unimaginable trauma and violence, and have more harm and pain inflicted onto them by the asylum system in the UK. It is therefore vital that we celebrate joy where we can, build deep connections, and lift each other up. We’re stronger together and we’re often told that WRW feels like a family. I’m proud of that.
How can people get involved?
Sign our pledge to Welcome Every Woman to become part of our community of activists making the UK a better place for women seeking safety.
Donate to support our work. £10 can enable one woman to attend one of our creative and educational activities – which makes a real difference.
Our activities wouldn’t be possible without our amazing volunteers! Keep an eye on our website for volunteering opportunities.
And follow us on social media @4refugeewomen to keep up to date with our work, events and campaigns.
Any big things happening within your charity in the next month you’d like to shout about?
March is a busy month for Women for Refugee Women with International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day.
We’re celebrating IWD with a party for the women in our network. There will be plenty of food, music, performances and dancing!
On Thursday 7th March 12:30pm, our drama group will be performing their new poetry series ‘Lost and Found’ at the Southbank Centre. The poetry will explore their individual lives through childhood and into adulthood.
Throughout March we will be sharing stories of motherhood from women in our network on our blog.
Join us to take action! There are currently fewer than 100 women in immigration detention in the UK, so the Government could end their use of detention now. However, they continue to cruelly detain women seeking safety – which inflicts huge harm to women who have already survived so much.
Our letter to the Home Secretary has already received cross-party support. Write to your MP now to help us reach even more MPs so the Home Secretary is forced to listen.
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