We are very excited to announce the successful applicants of the second round of Guardian Grants! After the launch of the grant round at our AGM, we received a large number of excellent applications which made the decisions very difficult. The successful applications were as follows:

Compass Project; ‘Welcome to York’

York City of Sanctuary have received a grant of £4,000 to expand their ‘Compass Project’ with a ‘Welcome to York’ programme. So far, the project has been involved in distributing donations collected in York and have organised a weekend in York for sanctuary seekers from Bradford who were hosted by local volunteers.

The expansion will involve organising days out in York (working with partners at York Minster and the National Rail Museum), respite visits for sanctuary seekers suffering from stress or anxiety and an emergency housing programme for those who are destitute.

East Lindsey

East Lindsey City of Sanctuary have received a grant of £3500 and will be organising a Language Retreat for 10 sanctuary seekers plus 10 local befrienders (including trained ESOL teachers) . They will stay in a youth hostel or similar venue for a weekend and work on English skills through playing games, conversation and formal and informal English lessons. This will utilise the skills and good-will from local people who have pledged support for City of Sanctuary.

Southampton

Southampton City of Sanctuary will use a grant of £9,200 to train six refugee and asylum-seeking volunteers to facilitate drama workshops for children of primary school age. This work will be in partnership with Nuffield Southampton Theatres (NST) and the volunteers will be from the World Stages Now (WSN) group of experienced refugee artists.

The workshops will explore issues of sanctuary with Year 5 classes in four primary schools in Southampton and will enable the children to develop and perform short dramatic pieces. There will also be a photo exhibition at NST and a DVD of the performances will be produced.

Manchester

Manchester City of Sanctuary are launching a new partnership project with Ultimate Spirit which will involve monthly ‘Ultimate Spirit Days’ to learn about the sport of Ultimate Frisbee plus food and a social event, entering teams into local tournaments and potentially organising a tournament. They’ve received a grant of £2300 for this project.

Derby

Derby City of Sanctuary have received a grant of £9,500 to deliver a ‘Sanctuary Specialists’ project. This project will have three main areas:

1. Training sanctuary seekers as ‘Sanctuary Specialists’ to work with local groups, businesses and organisations including delivering one-to-one sessions for groups pledging support, follow-up sessions to ensure actions have been carried out and to present Sanctuary Awards to groups that have successfully worked towards the three principles of ‘learn, embed, share’.
2. Raising awareness among City Councillors and key decision makers including arranging meetings, collecting letters of support for Derby to become a recognised City of Sanctuary and inviting key decision makers to Sanctuary Award events to meet sanctuary seekers and see support from local groups, businesses and organisations.
3. Raise awareness of Streams of Sanctuary by running focus groups involving a Sanctuary Specialist, set up channels of communication for sharing information and good practice and collecting and sharing stories on social media to promote the work being done in the city.

Sanctuary on Sea

Sanctuary on Sea have received funding of £7000 to develop a ‘Youth Club of Sanctuary’ which will bring together young sanctuary seekers and other young people from Brighton and Hove. Weekly two hour sessions will include games, creative group activities, workshops on topics such as wellbeing, sleep and independent living skills plus structured free time to socialise and make friends.

The partners in this project are experienced in working with young refugees and this will also allow specialist casework provision.

Volunteer Youth Leaders aged 16 – 25 will be recruited to lead some sessions and provided with free training. The Youth Leaders will form part of the core group and will help gather feedback.

During the initial 6 months pilot phase, the young people will work together on an open evening/event to showcase the group and promote it more widely to the local community.

Hay, Brecon and Talgarth

Hay, Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees (HBTSR) will be organising a residential personal development weekend with a grant of £7500. This will involve up to 30 sanctuary seeking young adults and up to 6 representatives from each School of Sanctuary in the area staying at a PGL centre near Hay-on-Wye. Together, they will undertake a range of leadership, educational and outdoor activities. HBTSR will organise some regular outdoor activities in the months leading up the retreat, in preparation.