Advent Appeal 2020
Please help provide emotional and practical support for refugee friends
£10 could provide a mobile phone top-up allowing refugee friends to contact loved ones
£25 could help feed a refugee and their family with a food parcel delivered by our Emergency Response Team
£50 could restore dignity to a destitute refugee with a hardship grant for essential needs
£100 could cover crucial legal advice bringing a refugee friend one step closer to justice
"In the faces of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, strangers and prisoners, we are called to see the face of Christ who pleads with us to help" - Pope Francis
Waiting for change
JRS’s refugee friends spend weeks, months and years waiting for the UK government to treat them with the dignity they deserve and their right to asylum. The current hostile UK immigration system robs precious time from our friends and has created the destitution in which many of them live, without the right to work nor access to stable accommodation.
They wait, and continue to wait, for new hope, freedom, and a new life to begin in the UK after a long and difficult journey.
The greatest problem still though for our refugee friends is the isolation of this period. The invisible virus which has taken hold of the country cut the lifeline of face-to-face support so many relied on to get them through their arduous wait for news on their asylum case.
Your gift today will help support our emergency response and adaptations to how we accompany our refugee friends weekly. They can receive regular food and toiletry parcel deliveries, access our legal advice service by phone, receive a financial grant for travel, count on weekly emotional phone support from our caseworkers and more.
Will you be able to make a donation this Advent so that refugees can rely on JRS UK for emotional and practical support, now and into the future?
"A waste of five years"
For the past four years Amanuel has been homeless. He doesn’t have friends or know many people in London. Amanuel was sleeping on the streets during the first lockdown, when he should have been sheltering from a fast spreading virus.
“I was on medication for my stress because I was not getting enough sleep. I have been having flashbacks from the life I have gone through already… It has been actually a long time since I have been here [the UK], like five years. To be honest, that’s a waste of five years from my life.”
A JRS caseworker helped Amanuel apply for provisional government accommodation support which he was granted. He is beyond grateful to have a bed and shower of his own. JRS’ Emergency Response Team are regularly delivering essential food and toiletries to him as well as monthly phone credit and a fortnightly hardship grant.
“Now that I have got accommodation, my situation is better. Thank you again to JRS. This food and money is like a life for me by itself. Food is life in a way. Even the money that is topped up on my mobile, that is helping me to communicate with you guys, so everything is really good for me. It’s just life-changing to be honest.”
This Advent, we hope you can find a way to make a donation in support of destitute refugees like Amanuel, so that his time, and many others’ time, is not lost at the hands of a harsh immigration system.
"I want to be a free man really. I want to be as everybody is - very ambitious to work, ambitious to learn, to get [a] family, take care of my child.”
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Semere – a refugee friend of JRS UK
How to Give
Online
You can donate online by clicking here.
By Post
Please make cheques payable to “Jesuit Refugee Service” and send to:
JRS UK, The Hurtado Jesuit Centre, 2 Chandler Street, London, E1W 2QT
Gift Aid it!
If you Gift Aid your donations we can claim back from the government 25p for every £1 you donate to JRS UK. This additional income really does make a big difference, so please don’t forget to Gift Aid your donations if you are a UK tax payer.
Regular Giving
You can set up a regular donation online through the buttons above, or if you prefer to send the form by post
Download our regular giving form here
Through your Parish or Community
You can organise a collection for JRS UK and send the money to us on behalf of your group. If you would like help or support, please contact us
