Target reached!
You can help this project to raise more and reach its stretch target.
Reunite child refugees with their families
London, England, United Kingdom
Aim
To launch an in-house legal team which will help child refugees reunite with their families in the UK
Every year thousands of unaccompanied child refugees arrive in Europe, alone, risking their lives to flee conflict and persecution.
Many of these children have a legal right to travel to safety and be reunited with their families, but they are unable to access this right.
Our aim is to create an in-house Safe Passage Legal team to ensure unaccompanied child refugees can join their families in the UK as quickly and safely as possible.
We have worked for over 3 years to reunite unaccompanied children with their families. With your help, we can double the number of children we help and reduce delays in the process which continue to put their lives at risk.
The in-house Safe Passage Legal team will help unaccompanied child refugees stranded in refugee camps in Europe access their legal right to reunite with their families in the UK as quickly and safely as possible.
By setting up our own in-house legal team, we will be able to support children fleeing conflict directly, so that they do not need to risk their lives jumping on the backs of lorries or falling into the hands of traffickers in order to reach family and safety.
Government cuts to legal aid and a shortage of specialists working in this area of law has made it much harder to find lawyers who are able to assist children with a legal right to be reunited with their family in the UK.
With legal support so difficult to access, the number of children being reunited safely with family is declining, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse in refugee camps across Europe.
All donations will help the in-house Safe Passage Legal team to:
- Directly support at least 50 more refugee children to understand and access their right to family reunion in the next 12 months
- Collect evidence to campaign for policy change and support taking the government to court where necessary
- Support and train other professionals working with refugee families, enabling many more children and families to benefit.
How will Brexit affect Safe Passage Legal?
Brexit makes this work even more urgent, as the UK’s departure from the EU means that the EU rules allowing child refugees in Europe to reunite with their families in the UK may no longer apply.
Between our campaigning and legal work, Safe Passage is the best-placed organisation to ensure that the rights of refugee children continue to be protected after Brexit.
Ridwan is 15 years old and from Eritrea...
“I left Eritrea with my mother and brother, we wanted to reach safety with our family in the UK because Eritrea was dangerous. When we crossed the Mediterranean, I was forced to travel on a different boat to my mum and brother. The boat they were on had an accident and it sank. They were two of over 700 people who died at sea on that boat. I felt so scared, sad and alone. I was in Rome for 9 months and I lost hope many times. I started to believe that nothing good would ever happen to me.
Thankfully I was put in touch with Safe Passage who helped me to reunite with my Aunt in the UK. I’ve been living in the UK for 18 months and my English is pretty good now. I want to become a civil engineer and make my family proud, so I’m studying really hard. I’m really happy to say I can finally call the UK my home.”
If we successfully raise our total we'll be able to provide direct legal support to many more children like Ridwan, helping child refugees in Europe reunite with their families.
Our innovative approach involves:
- Political advocacy, campaigning and community organising to build public and political support for safe and legal routes to sanctuary
- High quality legal casework to identify and support child refugees who are eligible for transfer and ensure this happens quickly and safely
- Post-arrival support to help young refugees access legal representation, settle into their new lives and empower them to tell their story
We are the only organisation to work in this way. Our work provides sustainable, long-term improvements so more refugee children can access their right to travel safely and legally to a place where they can lead a full life.
Our £30,000 target is the amount we need to raise in order to bring this project to life. We already have raised £55,000 from major donors and other sources:
Please donate so we can double the number of child refugees we help reach safety in the UK. If you are unable to donate, please share our campaign on your social media and with your friends, family and colleagues.
Follow us on social media and share our campaign: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Thank you.
Safe Passage International is a company limited by guarantee (number 11136659) and a registered charity (number 1179608). For more information on our work please visit our website.
This project successfully funded on 14th June 2019