Refugee Connect

CB volunteers are professional artists, musicians who are all “experts by experience” as migrants and asylum seekers - we bonded together around this shared experience and heritage. CB believes that “if people work together as individuals and as communities, we can learn, create, connect, inspire, grow together and build strong cultural bridges”. Its more than five years since we started our first project “refugee connect” and Four years since we started working with asylum seekers housed at The Britannia Hotel in Stockport (the main location for all asylum seekers here) Our services have grown and we now deliver many projects working with others including: • ESOL support • Art and Cultural Activities • Cultural food events inside and outdoors • Trips and fundays for adults and children • Celebrations including Eid, Christmas, and Chinese New Year.

 

Our support includes:

Workshops- Knitting, crochet, drawing, music workshops, using our volunteers to run activities and visiting workshop practitioners.  

Play activities - these run every session, staffed by volunteers.

English Language activities  We have 3 ESOL classes (Beginners, Intermediate and Advance levels) run for small groups, 15-20 at a time, with simple nouns and verbs in written English, but the focus would be on informal learning and English language practice on common topics. Ideally, this is for asylum seekers who remain in Stockport for 6 weeks of sessions. 

The sessions are including tea and biscuits conversation, encouragement for those attending to speak about something they enjoy and to ask questions about this, in English. 

We provide middle eastern hot meals on the day where we usually have  50-80 guests attending the sessions on Weds.