Working with refugees

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• Working with refugees asylum seekers
• By Komlan Gnamatsi
• Evelyn Oldfield Unit
• GLV NETWORKING DAY
• 28TH FEB 2007

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Working with Refugees ____________________________
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• WHAT IS EVELYN OLDFIELD UNIT?
• The Evelyn Oldfield Unit was set up in 1994 to
  provide, develop and coordinate specialist aid
  and support services for established refugee
  organisations in order to increase their capacity
  and potential for meeting the needs of their
  communities.

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• THE VOLUNTEERING DEVELOPMENT PROJECT (VDP)
• The project aims to support refugee and migrant
  led community organisations in London to improve
  their volunteer management, increase funding for
  volunteering and improve links and share
  expertise with mainstream agencies.
• Training, consultancy and Volunteer Sharing
  Scheme.

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• Skills Experience of Refugees (1)
• Languages, often more than 2.
• Work experience and qualifications, often at
  senior levels, and sometimes experience of
  overseas community development work.
• Empathy with disempowered clients, e.g. an
  understanding of isolation

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• Skills and Experience of refugees (2)
• Enthusiasm to learn new skills,
• Specific cultural awareness,
• Long-term commitment strong dedication,
• Close community contacts that can spread good PR
  for your organisation to client groups you find
  hard to reach
• Everything that any other volunteer could offer!

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• SUPPORT NEEDS (1)
• Lack of confidence
• Difficulty to adapt to the system
• Cultural awareness
• Social isolation
• No cash

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• SUPPORT NEEDS (2)
• Fear of formal interview
• Timekeeping
• Health issues esp. mental health
• Lack of references
• Worry about not fitting in or failure

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• CLASSIC INGREDIENTS
• Make them feel welcome
• Organisational attitude how to change it
• Induction
• Supervision
• Pairing volunteers
• Shadowing another volunteer or a staff
• Provide references
• Creating opportunities
• Team work

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• MOTIVATION RETENTION!
• Reimbursing expenses
• Including them in staff meetings and decision
  making
• Featuring them in newsletters and annual reports
• Reimbursing expenses
• Holding social events where volunteers can
  socialise and have fun
• Having ongoing training
• Giving them references for work or education
• Developing their roles to help them gain the
  skills they want
• Saying thank-you

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• VOLUNTEERING
• Volunteering is mostly seen as helping out or
  informal help thus its informal approach at both
  individual and organisational levels.
• is helping.You dont call it voluntary work
  because it is part of life.

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Working with Refugees __________________________
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• Recruiting refugee volunteers
• Places of worship liaising with religious
  leaders
• community events, outreach
• working in pships with RCOs or refugee agencies
• unconventional places community hair saloon,
  restaurants etc

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• How can VDP _at_ EOU help? (1)
• 11 consultancy, telephone mail support to
  RCOs on issues re volunteer management
• Fundraising support help with funding
  application, fundraising strategy
• Support with issues on refugee volunteering
• Referrals from other agencies

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Working with Refugees __________________________
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• How can VDP _at_ EOU help? (2)
• via the Volunteer Sharing Scheme
• A volunteer from RCO to volunteer in a
  mainstream organisations in order to share
  practice and skills (and learn new ones), to
  improve links between agencies esp. VCs and to
  raise awareness about refugee volunteering.
• VCs to host volunteers and/or as broker of
  volunteering opportunities

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Working with Refugees __________________________
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• Contact Details
• Komlan Gnamatsi
• Volunteering Development Manager
• Evelyn Oldfield Unit
• 356 Holloway Road
• London N7 6PA
• Tel [phone]
• Email komlan_at_evelynoldfield.co.uk
• Website www.evelynoldfield.co.uk
• THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME