Hastings refugee support group receives funding for next three years

The Refugee Buddy Project: Hastings, Rother and Wealden has been awarded its next three years of funding from the National Lottery Fund.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

The refugee support group, which was set up in 2017, said the funding will secure its ‘medium-term future’ and allow it to reopen its café and gallery space.

The café will be a safe space for people seeking refuge, a place for people to work out their own journey towards building a new life.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Rossana Leal, founder and director of TRBP said: “We are absolutely delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has awarded us this money and we can’t wait to reopen a café and gallery space which we hope will become the buzzing, fun space it was when we were based on Grand Parade.”

Picture: The Refugee Buddy Project: Hastings, Rother and Wealden SUS-210806-104507001Picture: The Refugee Buddy Project: Hastings, Rother and Wealden SUS-210806-104507001
Picture: The Refugee Buddy Project: Hastings, Rother and Wealden SUS-210806-104507001

In the run up to this year’s Refugee Week, The Refugee Buddy Project: Hastings Rother & Wealden announced its membership of a new campaign coalition – Together With Refugees – that launched on June 1.

The charity joins the Together With Refugees campaign alongside more than 200 national and grassroots groups across the country who are calling for a more effective, fair and humane approach to the UK’s asylum system.

Rossana Leal added: “We are proud to support Together With Refugee’s call on the government to rethink its new proposals and stand up for people’s ability to seek safety in the UK, including those who had to find any route they could to escape danger.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The theme for this year’s national Refugee Week – which runs from June 14 to June 21 – is ‘we cannot walk alone’; a quote from Martin

Luther King Jnr.

Hastings and Bexhill will celebrate refugee week with a series of activities including:

– An exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion called All in the Same Storm: Pandemic Patchwork Stories

– A seafront mural near Goatledge, painted by animator Sarah Gomes-Harris and Kurdish artist Helen Dodaki.

Related topics: