Over the past 9 years, we have met hundreds of young people at different stages of their journeys. We passionately believe in them. We have found time and again that by building human connections, nurturing friendships and encouraging refugees to be leaders, young people who have fled terrible persecution can rebuild their lives and flourish. Through educational and specialist support, lives can change, and your support has made that possible. Now we are faced with a serious challenge. Our funding situation has significantly changed and we urgently need your additional support.
Your donation would go directly towards the costs of specialist staff who work around-the-clock to be there for vulnerable refugees. It would go towards our amazing mentoring co-ordinators, without whom ournationwide educational mentoring programme would simply stop functioning. And it would go towards our Young Refugees Crisis Response stream, which provides food, medical supplies and technology. We have to raise £60,000 by June 2020 to keep our services running. Please consider making a donation and spreading the word with your friends and communities. It is needed now more so than ever. Thank you.
tell us constantly about how much school means to them. It is a safe place where they can make friends and feel part of a welcoming community. It is a place of learning which prepares them for their future. It's a place of hope where they can start to heal from all that has gone before. Young people have told us that starting school is like "walking from darkness into light".
Today the unthinkable has happened. Schools have closed. Just a few weeks ago this would've been unimaginable but now, across the UK, individuals, families and whole communities are trying to figure out what this will mean for us and our children, in both the short and the long term.
Young refugees in the UK have already missed out on huge chunks of education in the countries they're from and on their journeys to safety. Large numbers wait months again for a school place after arriving in the UK. Today's school closures will hit them hard. Many do not have computers at home, or even access to the internet - and learning in your second or third language is even harder by distance.
And that's not the only thing which will be hard. Most of the young refugees were working with are struggling in other ways: poor mental and physical health, precarious housing, lack of supportive communities and uncertain futures.
We are working hard to transition our educational mentoring, educational progression and wellbeing programmes online - and working even harder to ensure all our young people can access them. We're also ramping up our support to meet the additional needs young refugees have right now, because of Coronavirus. We don't want a single one of the young people we work with to have to face this crisis alone.
Please help. Our resources are stretched thinner than ever before. Every penny helps us do more, whether its support with technology and connectivity, to providing round-the-clock wellbeign support to the acutely vulnerable. Donate today if you can. Thank you.
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