Following the success of last year’s Family Fun Day, RRN joins Winchester University again to host a special afternoon at the University for refugee families settled in the region. We’ve invited families from across Hampshire and are expecting 50-70 people. Winchester University is again providing the venue and most of the support but it would be wonderful to have a few more volunteers from RRN. The afternoon starts at 2pm and there will be crafts and games for the children, tea, cake and sandwiches, massage and a tour of the University. All our families will be there as well as others from Lymington, Basingstoke and Chichester.

If anyone would like to bake, we’d be most grateful for your contributions.

Please get in touch if you have any questions. emily@emilymott.com

Resettlement Team

After a quiet winter, the next few months will see a busy time as there are two properties becoming available, hopefully in the next month or so.
We have a great team of volunteers, if you would like to be involved with a team and are looking for something practical you can do to help then maybe this is it.

So what do we do…?
The Resettlement Team works alongside the Two Saints charity, local Government and other agencies to ensure houses identified by the Housing Team are prepared and ready for families arriving in the UK.  This includes sourcing furniture and household items as needed, ensuring a first shop has been completed and preparing a meal for the family on their first day in their new home.

We ensure the available homes are ready for a family.  This may involve:

It’s a great team of enthusiastic, ordinary people, prepared to give up time and a little creativity to help transform a house into a home.  Enthusiasm is the most important asset though a driving license/own car is very useful.

If you think this may be for you then please get in touch:- resettlement@ruralrefugeenetwork.org

We need volunteers to help RRN organise our ‘Syrian Suppers’ event which will take place during the month of October. We also need help with small local fundraising events.

We are now looking forward to the Family Fun Day organised along with the University of Winchester on 23rd June.

First of all, a big thank you to Kate Grocott, who has played a great role in our housing work to date. Kate is taking some time off, but we look forward to welcoming her back in the not too distant future.

Thanks to Kate and the rest of the housing team we now have seven properties on stream, with two more, in East Hampshire, due to be handed over in July. We have also been able to pass on details of two homes in Devon to our contacts there. We now have quite a complement of houses in East Hants and Winchester, so will be looking to expand elsewhere in the County.

Housing is of course the starting point for our work; without homes we cannot provide the welcome, support and all other services that mean so much. So please can everyone make an even greater effort to spread the word to every group of friends and colleagues you come into contact with. There can be few more ethical investments than housing for refugees. With the help of our Q&A sheet we can explain the facts to both landlords and anyone with a lump sum sitting in a bank doing nothing. Not that everyone is that fortunate, of course, but those who have downsized or inherited money are seeing the benefits of helping refugees in this way.

Andy Crowe

There’s lots going on behind the scenes from the Fundraising Team, which includes the setting up of a community fundraising group.

A huge thank you has to go to Kay Summerfield and her team who ran a hugely popular Syrian Food Stall, as part of the Spirit of Music Festival in May. From this event they raised £470, the donation of a house in Petersfield (although sadly EHDC has not been able to progress the offer) plus more volunteers. Thanks also to Sara for inviting us to your event.

We have two community events that we will be supporting; St Peter’s Church Fete in Petersfield inSeptember and Blackmore Apple Tasting in October. Full details will be included in the next Newsletter.

This month Genevieve Raeburn, who is part of the Fundraising Team, has a pop-up shop in Petersfield “Raeburn Design & Roost-UK” on Tuesday 19^thJune at The Petersfield Space, 11 Lavant Street 6.00pm-9.00pm.

Do go and support her on her opening evening as 10% of all proceeds is being donated to the RRN and Children on the Edge.

Serve Food for Syria

October will be dedicated to a month of activity, whether is it organised events or fundraising in our own homes, all around raising money through serving food to friends and family and asking them to make a donation. You may remember that One Tree Books and Madeleine’s Kitchen ran a very successful event last year, where some of our refugees spoke; this was followed by a delicious meal in the shop. Other people hosted meals in their homes, all raising money for us through donations. Due to the success of our first year, we are planning on making it much bigger in 2018. So please do start thinking about who you would invite – it could be for tea and cake or you might want to do a full blown dinner!  We are in the process of creating an information pack, which will be available to pick up or to download from the website. But we are also going to hold a major dinner towards the end of October and more details will follow.

In the meantime have a look at this link on the BBC podcast on interesting food stories from Syria:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3b4m7

Alex Rennie Art Show
Many of you will know the name Alex Rennie from the two 33 Art Sales. He is a very popular artist, whose work has sold at both Art Shows. He is also hugely committed to the plight of refugees and after having been inspired by the work the RRN community does he has created a body of work in honour of refugees and those that welcome them. He is having a solo show in aid of RRN and our partner charity Children on the Edge in London on 3^rd & 4th December at the Frestonian Gallery, Holland Park, London  http://www.frestoniangallery.com/.

33% of the price of every piece of art sold will come to the Rural Refugee Network and Children on the Edge. We very much hope that you will be able to visit the show, and also bring friends and family who would be interested.

We are starting to put together an invitation list, so if you want to invite people, please do let us know through hello@ruralrefugeenetwork.org

Chichester Half Marathon – Run for Refugees
As you know we are working in partnership with Children on the Edge. They run the Chichester Half Marathon, which takes place on Sunday 8^th October.

If you would like to take part the details are here https://www.chichesterhalfmarathon.co.uk/half-marathon.html

Please let them know you are doing this through the Rural Refugee Network, as they will set up a special Just Giving fundraising page for us.

As always very many thanks for your support. If you would like to join our team please do drop us an e-mail via hello@ruralrefugeenetwork.org

Sarah Green