BHN has been supporting a growing number of Afghan asylum seekers for the past 12 years. Many of them have received leave to remain (refugee status) after staying with us and making a fresh asylum claim.
Please note we do not work with newly resettled families. To support these families, please contact Bristol City Council at bristol.gov.uk/afghan, full link here: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/.../afghan-resettlement-programme. The main need for resettled families is HOUSING. This means a whole house or flat to rent at affordable rent. If you have a house to rent out in Bristol, please do contact the Council.
BHN works with refused destitute asylum seekers. People who are already here; and there are many. Afghans already in the UK should soon be able to make a fresh asylum claim (once the government changes the country guidance on Afghanistan) and we would hope that the home office would accept many of these claims, as it is clearly unsafe for Afghans to be removed to Afghanistan now. We expect many Afghans who already live in Bristol but are refused to come forward to make fresh claims once the government stops forced removals to Afghanistan and starts to offer sanctuary to the Afghan people (and we need to make sure we hold them to account so they do; please see this model statement which you could adapt to contact your MP: https://www.asylum-welcome.org/joint-statement-on-the.../).
To support Afghan people in Bristol, you can help us by:
1. Supporting for our solidarity fund, £20 a week for those in destitution in Bristol. To set up a Direct Debit or make a donation, please go to our local giving page: https://localgiving.org/charity/bhn/
2. We need more hosts to come forward and offer a room in their house in inner city Bristol (ideally a quiet place, with an expectation that the person would spend a lot of time out of the house, you may see very little of them. They really need just a room!)
3. We have also seen success with groups of people working together to provide rooms in shared houses. This could be a group of students/young professionals, either paying more rent to cover the shortfall, or getting friends/parents to help fund a spare room in their house for a BHN member. This has recently worked well (and we can put you in touch with a group that did this for 2 members if you are interested!)
Thank you for your interest in supporting us.