Community Advocacy

How to contact us and get help

If you are new to the project then you can call our advice line on Wednesdays from 10-1pm.

We provide general advice and assistance on immigration, health, housing and money issues on the day, where there is capacity within the organisation we allocate the case for 1-1 follow up with a caseworker.  We give information and connect women to organisations that can assist if we are at capacity, or it is not our specialist area.

Advocacy flyer jan 2025

In our advocacy we work as a team, which includes our 1-1 specialist workers, and casework mentor. We do the best we can, to support and empower. 

Specialist Areas for 1-1 Casework

We focus on undocumented and asylum-seeking women, and help newly granted refugees and settled women access established community services.  We prioritise women who have been affected by gender violence and trafficking.

Our trauma informed ethos is to engage women to learn about and navigate the system in a positive way, stand in their own power and draw on supportive people and networks. 

Practicing advocates have years experience we are all developing casework skills. We work with community and professional interpreters.

Financial resilience​

Bridget helps women who have recently been granted residence in the UK, they need support with applying for benefits, finding work, as well as setting up utilities and getting grants for their new homes.

NRPF and Asylum​

Sarah and Mireille help women who are undocumented with No recourse to Public Funds (NRPF). Women have complex needs that result from various traumatic events in their home countries, on the journey and in the UK, for example domestic abuse, sexual and gender based violence. We work in partnership with others to help women get residence, avoid destitution, exploitation and abuse.

Community Advocacy Development

Community advocacy, and empowering women is our primary purpose, everything stems from the support and solidarity we have with women going through a difficult system. 

At first we all volunteered, supported by voluntary sector partners with space and resources. Women we knew through connections to the Hope Projects, Women with Hope and Kushinga Gardens asked founding advocates, Bridget, Iram and Sarah for help.

We were initially funded by LUSH in 2017, who gave money for 6 advocates to be trained and volunteer for a year to give advice, then Big Lottery gave us funding for a year to develop and expand our advocacy to a formal drop in, in 2018, which established us firmly in the local community. We advocated from the Birmingham Women and Childrens Cente, formed from the Women’s and Children’s Centre roots in the Calais Jungle. Many of the East African Migrants we see today connected to us here. 

In 2019 year we continued to provide advocacy, as well as train advocates and women with Wisdom Factory and Help Refugees funding.

In 2020 we continued to get Help Refugees, now Choose Love Funding for voluntary advocacy. During covid the number of women asking for help increased. We gained worker funds via the COVID-19 Response Fund for BME Women’s Organisations. Administered by Rosa, the UK Fund for Women and Girls.

Since 2021 we have continued to get support to run our advocacy project from Rosa, the UK Fund for Women and Girls, as well as Barrow Cadbury and the Smallwood Trust. We are part of the NRPF Women’s Network in the West Midlands trying to bring about better services and positive system change for women.

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