People usually ask me why I felt I had to set up a charity and I have to say it seemed like the only option at the time. I had some involvement with refugee organisations in Manchester, heard about some people that needed family reunion funding and that the Red Cross programme had closed (this has since reopened).
Working at the time with property investors who were buying apartments like they were handbags it seemed sensible to see if I could get some of the refugees looking for funding some of the money that was being waved around in the office.
However nothing is that easy and once the ball got rolling setting up a charity was the only way to get the money and once you've set it up and a few people have got in touch, you've been over awed and inspired by other people in the sector and the help they're willing to give you, you've seen the need.... you're kind of committed.
Originally the idea was we'd give grants to families looking for family reunion and we still do this. When an asylum seeker is granted refugee status their dependent pre flight family are eligible for visas to come and join them. Although this sounds simple written down this visa application can be expensive (legal fees and documents - the visa application is free) and can see delay after delay for documents to be found, applied for, DNA tests to be carried out and any obstacle you can think of coming up.
At the end of this people are left with a visa and a family overseas. The cost of bringing a family over depends on many factors, the country of origin, whether children are accompanied and the number of people. For some it can be well into the thousands and for most even a couple of hundred means months of saving their already stretched income.
We are able to take cases, on a one by one basis, and cover the travel expenses for the family. This means families can be reunited faster and the healing process can begin.
About this time last year we launched a travel service to those who are able to fund their own travel. This allows them to use our booking service, contacts and discounts and we charge a small fee (as a percentage of any savings they make on the flights) to go towards our main grant fund. Although it started slowly cases going through the service are beginning to come in and we hope this will continue to be useful to people looking for family reunion.
