Warm Welcome at Heathrow

Welcoming a refugee family to the UK, Heathrow in January 2022.

A group of community sponsors welcomed a refugee family that came from a refugee camp in the Middle East to the UK through the refugee resettlement scheme. The family has lived in a refugee camp for several years and now have found a place to call home in Oxfordshire.

Community sponsorship is one of the ways that members of a community can sponsor refugees from refugee camps and help them restart a new life in the UK. Hundreds of families have been welcomed to the UK and were supported to rebuild their lives through this scheme. Most of those involved are volunteers and members of the community from different backgrounds and walks of life. Community sponsors assist with finding accommodation for refugee families before they arrive. They also help them with filling out form, support with English and employment among many other things. Since March 2020 most of community sponsors and the families they assist were affected by the pandemic. This meant almost no new arrivals into the UK due to Covid-19 restrictions. 

Photo credit: Sponsor Refugees

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This material is part of the Covid Chronicles from the Margins project, funded by The Open University and The Hague. The project aims to highlight the impact of the pandemic on refugees, asylum seekers & undocumented migrants.

This item can also be found on the Covid Chronicles website.