Justice and Human Rights United Kingdom Project #22691

Stand with Survivors

by Helen Bamber Foundation

Project Report | Mar 31, 2023
March 2023 Helen Bamber Foundation Report

By Caitlin | Corporate and Philanthropy Executive

Dear Supporters,

We're so excited to share what we have been up to with you. We would also like to thank you for your support and allowing us to provide support to Survivors of trafficking, torture, and human cruelty.

2022 saw us continue to provide our model of integrated care to survivors – we also faced many challenges including:

As a result of the war in Ukraine, we have worked to support clients to access justice through explaining the various Ukraine schemes and offering advice on asylum to those directly impacted by the conflict.We have secured urgent protection and safety for the most vulnerable individuals and laid the foundations for a long-term response to this humanitarian catastrophe.
As bills and the general cost of living continue to rise, we are supporting Survivors who were already surviving on the absolute bare minimum, due to the low rates of asylum support, by proactively sharing advice and assistance to ensure clients are accessing all possible income. Our dedicated housing and welfare team are also providing emergency relief grants to help our clients purchase food and basic essentials such as sanitary towels.
Record numbers of people are being displaced by war and conflict, which leads to more trafficking and abuse. We are therefore seeing an increased demand for our services and expertise. This year, we are expanding our services to reach more Survivors by opening our Trauma Centre: a brand-new, best-in-class trauma facility specifically designed to meet the needs for Survivors and aid their recovery. It will create an invaluable space for our partners to share learnings so we can raise standards across the sector.

Finally, I wanted to share a podcast where you can hear directly from Kasun, one of the Survivors we work with, on how access to mental health support made a tremendous difference in his life. It is not often that Survivors feel they can share their stories publicly, so we are tremendously grateful to Kasun for his bravery in doing so. You can listen to the episode here: ‘Losing Myself: Mental Health in a Hostile Environment’, organised by Migrants Organise and Speak Up Radio.

Once again, thank you for your continued support for Survivors of trafficking and torture. I look forward to updating as we progress through 2023.

Best wishes,

Helen Bamber Foundation

Links:

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May 21, 2020
May 2020 Helen Bamber Foundation Report

By Sophie Parker | Fundraising and Communications Officer

Dear Friends,

I hope this finds you all safe and well. It's been an incredibly difficult time for us all recently and I'm excited to share with you the amazing work the Helen Bamber Foundation team has been doing to adapt to the many challenges the crisis presents for the vulnerable survivors we support.

Thank you, again, so much, for continuing your support of the Helen Bamber Foundation.

Survivors of torture and human trafficking are particularly vulnerable during the coronavirus public health crisis. They are at risk of falling prey to human traffickers and others who would exploit them during desperate times. Survivors struggle with PTSD, depression and anxiety, all of which are exacerbated by lockdown, leading to an increase in panic attacks, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Many survivors are completley alone, with no family or friends and with little money to live on.

In order to keep our services running during the coronavirus outbreak, the Helen Bamber Foundation's team of specialist psychologists, doctors and lawyers and experts in housing, welfare and counter-trafficking have made rapid innovations in our services to continue supporting survivors remotely during lockdown, this includes:

regularly contacting clients via phone or video call to make sure they are getting the vital support they need
continuing our community skills groups online via Zoom, such as art, photography, textiles and yoga to maintain a sense of structure and community for survivors who are isolated and struggling with anxiety
producing medico-legal reports remotely, so that survivors' legal claims are not delayed and protracted any more than necessary
providing remote therapeutic support so that survivors are equipped to manage their mental health symptoms from ptsd flashbacks and nightmares to anxiety and depression
giving smartphones and data top-ups to those survivors who do not have access to the internet
fighting for policy change so that survivors are not left to fall through the gaps, during the crisis

Our deepest thanks for your support at this time. You are helping survivors by enabling HBF to deliver our core services, redeploy staff into new roles, deliver regular safeguarding contact, mental health counter-crisis support and additional casework to ensure vulnerable survivors of trafficking and torture are safe and protected during this crisis.

Our warmest wishes

Helen Bamber Foundation

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Oct 16, 2019
October 2019 Helen Bamber Foundation Report

By Sophie Parker | Fundraising and Communications Officer

Hello friends,

I hope this finds you well, and that you're enjoying the move into Autumn. We're so excited to share what we have been up to with you.

We would also like to thank you for your support - thanks to you we are able to continue supporting survivors of torture and human trafficking to find the strength to move on. Thank you!

Hike for Freedom

In this report, we're focusing on a project that has achieved great success recently, our Hike for Freedom project.

For the past nine months a group of women from the Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) have been training - whatever the weather - in preparation to climb the UK Three Peaks - Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike, and Snowdon.

The challenge was about coming together as a team, supporting each other and pushing our comfort zones.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing and there were some difficult times during the challenge. Low mood would creep in, sickness, lack of sleep, pain and physical exhaustion all contributed to emotions running high at times.

Importantly, everyone gave it their all, staying positive despite being exhausted and the difficult weather conditions. The group supported each other till the end, and witnessing such camaraderie and care for one another was incredible to experience.

'I think there is a reason why they called this 'Hike for Freedom' and this is it for me: It has helped me to find the freedom, the voice, the spirit and the positivity that I've been looking for... People have told me 'you can't do this', 'you can't achieve this', 'you're not this', 'you're not that', but after today, nobody will tell me 'you can't do this' or 'you can't achieve this'. I have become a professional hiker! I smashed it! I am so glad and happy that I was in the midst of all these beautiful women and souls because the whole team has been really really supportive of us all and you know we are very grateful.’

We are so proud of this group of survivors for challenging themselves and supporting each other through this momentus challenge.

Thank you once again for your support and we look forward to sharing more of our work with you in our next report.

Our warmest regards

Helen Bamber Foundation

Links:

http://www.helenbamber.org

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