Meet the community

Families

The families we are currently helping lived originally in Damascus and in the Aleppo and Idlib areas. They fled the fighting in Syria and moved to surrounding countries - Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt - where they registered with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. The UK Government's Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (SVPRS) was launched in January 2014 to help those refugees in the region surrounding Syria who are in the greatest need, including people requiring urgent medical treatment, survivors of violence and torture, and women and children at risk. For the Scheme's definition of vulnerability see here.

Volunteers

Dave

"Joined up as a driver with good, but lofty, notions which were quickly overlaid by finding pleasure in helping dear friends in need to settle in the neighbourhood."

THEO

"I decided to join Sevenoaks Welcomes Refugees after I heard what was going on in Afghanistan. I chose to help where & when I could at events, and help share interesting articles on our social media.

I'm glad I decided to join and I'm glad I've met so many great people and made good friends. "

Sam

"I've always enjoyed making friends with people from other parts of the world. SWR represents a wholesome way to broaden my horizons and connect with the community."

HUMPHREY

"I was one of the volunteers who got together in 2017 to set up Sevenoaks Welcomes Refugees. It's been great to see SWR grow from one to twelve families from Syria and Afghanistan, and fifty families from Ukraine. I hope that we will be able to help more families in the future. I've enjoyed using my experience to help grow the charity."

SIMON

"When I retired I was looking for something useful to do. I found SWR entirely by chance and had never thought of doing this sort of thing before. The opportunity to work with these wonderful people has quite simply changed my life. I hope I can make a difference to their lives too."

RACHEL

"I joined one of the family teams in SWR after attending an Ayman Jarjour concert in 2018 in aid of Syrian refugees. I was already a volunteer reading helper at the school attended by the children in the family I help support, so I have also been helping them at school and can provide a link between home, school and the family team. It’s been very rewarding."