About us
Our Vision
Our vision is for High Wycombe to be a welcoming and safe place for refugees, asylum seekers and their dependents so that they can have a growing sense of belonging within the community, being accepted and feeling able to integrate and thrive in all areas of life.
Helping rebuild lives
Since 2016, we have helped hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers. They came from Algeria, Syria, Iran, Iraq, India, Egypt, Tunisia, Kenya, Cameroun, Palestine, Sudan, Albania, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. We support asylum seekers who are housed in High Wycombe by the Home Office, refugees who are housed here temporarily by other councils, as well as refugees who are living in High Wycombe and making this their home.
Our Halfway House
We also run a halfway house provided by Chilterns Area Quaker Meeting, which we use for temporary accommodation, giving a person or family who have refugee status time to settle, look at study and employment options and eventually move into private rented accommodation. We offer support with integration into the High Wycombe community, accessing training, CV writing, job applications and understanding private property rental in the UK. We are also able to provide the deposit and first month’s rental as they move on to more independent living. All of this is done by our teams of volunteers who bring different skills and support to each beneficiary as needed.
Our Core Values
We respect and value every person whatever their background, ethnicity or ‘story’ and treat them with dignity and kindness. We also extend this mutual respect to colleagues and partners.
Respect
​We work with compassion and sincerity, recognising the extreme hardships that our beneficiaries have endured, and the difficulties and uncertainties of the asylum and refugee systems in the UK.
Compassion
We work in a way that promotes and works towards healthy independence in those that we support.
Empowerment
We seek out partnerships with other charities and organisations recognising that collaboration enables us to achieve more and provide better support.
Partnership
The Team
Sue Butler
Chair of Trustees
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Razwan Baig
Treasurer and Trustee
Dr Tanveer Choudhary
Trustee
Dave Jones
Trustee
Jane Knight
ESOL Team Lead
Sandy Mitcheson
Support Team
Leila Ashraf-Carr
Volunteer Coordinator
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Saleema Burney
Vice-Chair of Trustees
Liz Sheppard
Education Trustee and School Admissions Lead
Dr Nasheeda Mariyam
Trustee and Volunteer Coordinator
Chris Nicholls
Community Response Trustee
Liz Fillingham
Safeguarding Officer
Trina Richards
Donated Goods Lead and Activities Lead
Veronika Adam Svarcova
Senior Administrator
Join the team and help make a difference!
How it all began
Need for Action
In the autumn of 2015, a petition and then a motion were presented to Wycombe District Council, asking for them to agree to accept some of the 20,000 refugees whom the Government had pledged to resettle under the Vulnerable Persons’ Resettlement Scheme. The Council was not minded to take any. Those of us who wanted to help refugees therefore sought another way to do so.
Acting together with loving kindness
Following bombings in Paris and elsewhere, interfaith vigils were organised. It became apparent that there was a groundswell of support among people of goodwill in High Wycombe, and a movement called Acting Together with Loving Kindness was born. When we registered as a charity in July 2016, the name was changed to Wycombe Refugee Partnership.
Extending our reach
When the pandemic started, we became aware that there were more refugees and asylum- seekers in High Wycombe who were in dire need. Some were not even receiving the Home Office allowance of £49.18 pp pw, because they had opted out of a system which could whisk the family off to another town at minimal notice. These people had been relying on friends for financial support – and then the friends were hit financially by Covid, so life had become very difficult indeed.
At the height of the pandemic, we were delivering halal food to 91 people twice a week, as well as responding to requests for furniture, clothes, school uniforms, school-books, bus fares and access to sports. During lockdown, we provided laptops and tablets so that children could do their schoolwork online, as well as paying for broadband in some cases.
We continue to provide supermarket vouchers on a short-term basis to some people when they have problems accessing state funding.
Most important of all, we are showing them that there are people in their adopted country who care about them.
Awarded:
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