A Thriving Place for Refugees!

Upbeat Communities is thrilled to have been awarded £291,546 in funding over the next 3 years from the National Lottery Community Fund for a new Thriving Places project. The project will enable the continuation of life-giving projects such as our women’s and children’s support, as well as enabling new tailored support plans so that each individual can experience specific support for their needs. Chief Executive Andrew Jackson shares more about what this funding will mean for the charity in its current context.

Over the last 17 years of welcoming and empowering refugees at Upbeat Communities, much has changed. Even since coming out of the chaos and upheaval of the pandemic years, we have seen the tangible effects of crises around the globe, like the fall of Kabul in Afghanistan in August 2021, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. Many of us have seen the terrible violence in Sudan on our television screens recently.

These events have meant, or will mean, more people arriving in Derby in need of support, whilst those affected by long-term conflict in the countries that don’t make the news headlines remain just as in need. Those from Eritrea or Ethiopia, Iran or Iraq, or Central American countries like El Salvador and Honduras.

It’s our privilege to meet people from across the globe every day, each with a different story to tell, each with unique needs.

A mum who arrived on her own trying to look after several young children and get them registered in school. A young man who can’t speak English and feels isolated and overwhelmed at the paperwork he must fill in to access the right support. A person who simply needs community and some friends around them at a time when their entire world has been turned upside-down.

Upbeat Communities is proud to support people in all these situations and more.

That’s why we’re so thankful to have been awarded the National Lottery Thriving Places funding. This will be completely instrumental for us as we look to take our support for those seeking refuge to the next level. We are also so encouraged that the National Lottery has recognised the needs of some of the most vulnerable people living in our local community.

One of our values as an organisation is that we run on relationships. So, we’re especially excited that the funding will enable us to create individually tailored support plans so that people can receive the specific, 1-to-1 support they need to really thrive as they rebuild their lives. This is something we have been keen to put in place for a while, to take our support services to the next level of depth, joining with people on their journey and providing regular check-ins to find out how they are really doing.

An individual who has begun being supported in this way told us, “When my family and I arrived here in Derby, it was very complicated because I knew nothing about what I need to do, about the school for the children, about the hospitals or the surgeries.

I don’t have idea about that! But Einir (Upbeat Staff) helped me with the registration for the school for the children, and to complete the form, and register with the dentist, and to get a solicitor for my case of asylum seeker.

And Upbeat continue to help me with the classes of English. In the beginning, I don’t understand nothing. But at the moment, I can understand. Maybe I need to improve a lot, but I continue taking the class at Upbeat and it is very useful for me.”

The funding also facilitated the employment of two new members of staff who come from countries that many people who come through our doors would call home. We know that the empathy they will be able to provide will have a profound impact on those they support, another way in which people will feel supported on a deeper level.

Thank you to the National Lottery for helping us to empower people and change lives!

Andrew Jackson – Chief Executive

Keep up-to-date with news and stories of hope from Upbeat by signing up to our mailing list: www.upbeatcommunities.org/supporter-signup. To find out more about the National Lottery Community Fund, visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk