Reset

We spoke to Bea, the Campaigns and Policy Lead at Reset.

1. Can you tell us a bit more about Reset?

We were founded as a charity to support Community Sponsorship in 2018 and have since embraced other forms of community-led welcome.

We provide training and support for three refugee resettlement schemes to help create welcoming communities for refugees. The schemes we currently work within are Community Sponsorship, Homes for Ukraine and Neighbours for Newcomers.

Community Sponsorship allows communities to come together to welcome refugees and provide the practical support to a family to start their lives in the UK. A Community Sponsorship group will find a house, raise money and get local connections in place then they’ll be matched with a family identified by the UNHCR as in need of safety. Once all of this is in place, they’ll meet the family at the airport and support them for a year.

Homes for Ukraine asks people with spare rooms in their homes to welcome Ukrainians for a minimum of six months.

Reset is motivated by supporting communities to welcome refugees. We work with a diverse range of brilliant people who help to create welcoming communities across the UK, from faith groups, to neighbours and even sports groups!

We’re looking to expand the community-led welcome of refugees. Using our positioning as a charity who works so closely with communities, we want to help support them and those that have been welcomed to explore what welcome means and how it can be used to create more pathways.

2. What challenges are you currently facing and how are you tackling them?

There are so many people who still need the support of communities to welcome them to safety. We really need people in the UK to open their homes to Ukrainians and host through Homes for Ukraine, and we need people to come together and welcome refugees through Community Sponsorship.

When we go and talk to people across the country about schemes like Community Sponsorship, they are all amazed that a scheme like this exists. The level of support is provides for refugees is fantastic, and creates welcoming communities. However, not enough people know about it. We try to spread the word as much as possible, but there are still many people who could be a part of this movement, but are not, solely because they are unaware of it!

We’ve recently run a campaign called ‘CommuniTeas’ in order to bring people together for those in person conversations about welcoming refugees. We had over 30 tea parties around the UK, bringing people together over a cup of tea to chat about what refugee welcome could look like in their area.

3. How can people support you?

Sign up to be a host, join a CS group or help put on awareness events.

We need people to either directly get involved with hosting or starting Community Sponsorship groups, but we’re aware that is a big ask! So, we really need help in spreading the word, building the movement and gaining awareness of these schemes of refugee welcome. If everyone who had the capacity to start a CS group did, we’d have so many more people welcomed to safety, and many more communities working together to create welcoming environments.

For more information about Reset's programmes visit our website & social media:

Website: https://resetuk.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reset-communities-and-refugees/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ResetUKorg

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/resetcommunitiesandrefugees/