3 years of #rethinkingrefugee

As our #rethinkingrefugee campaign turns 3 we are celebrating its past and future. We look at how the campaign has evolved and what we are focusing on for the next stages in our mission to change the negative perceptions of refugees.

2015

The campaign was created in 2015 as a reaction to the sheer volume of negativity surrounding refugees. We saw a need to change the dialogue after hostile headlines covered the front of many national newspapers. Even the positive humanitarian stories portrayed refugees as helpless and incapable, demanding people to feel sorry for them and take pity. Whereas the truth is that refugees are strong-willed, hard-working and valuable individuals.

The definition of a refugee is ‘a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster’. The key word here being ‘forced’; refugees leave their homelands in search of sanctuary, and alongside this, they involuntarily leave their families, careers and livelihoods. Portraying refugees as unskilled and helpless individuals is false, they bring a valuable set of experiences, passions and skills with them, making them an asset to any community.

#rethinkingrefugee was born to challenge the ‘them’ and ‘us’ narrative and change the public’s views on refugees by celebrating the valuable contributions they have and will continue to make for our communities. We disseminated the campaign via our social media platforms, using success stories about our tenants and learners to enable the public to view their human and individual qualities. We never focused our attention on arguing against the negative portrayal of refugees but instead focused on highlighting the positive stories to let people change their own minds.

2016

After a year, the message of our campaign was only getting stronger, so we decided to evolve #rethinkingrefugee to address a more specific and targeted group of people – landlords. One of the main components of ACH is our supported housing and without properties, we would not be able to help the 450 refugees we house each year. In Bristol, the high demand for property leads to increasing rents. As a not-for-profit organisation, we sometimes cannot afford to pay the market rate in the city; instead, we rely on landlords who wish to do something more positive with their investment.

We used the #rethinkingrefugee campaign to address this issue with an event in Bristol, with the media coverage gaining us more properties from private landlords and the council. This was a fantastic achievement for ACH as it meant we could help more people, and it was also encouraging to see several landlords changing their perceptions of refugees.

2017

Carrying on from our success in 2016, we began to work closely with Bristol City Council in 2017 to restore empty homes in the city to house refugees. You can find out more about the empty homes project here.

Evolving yet again, the campaign expanded to fit within the skills agenda being pushed by Central Government and the Combined Authorities in the West of England. This meant the focus was on changing perceptions of refugees amongst employers. After all, refugees are people with skills and ambitions who are valuable to any business. Although by definition, they are seeking refuge from life-threatening situations, they are not looking for our pity; they are looking for jobs to enable them to support their families and are assets to employers and local communities.

Some of the biggest achievements from this strand of #rethinkingrefugee were the several pilot training courses we ran with employers to get refugees into work. These included household names like Starbucks and Co-op, who themselves are working towards creating a more diverse workforce. Starbucks have pledged to employ 10,000 refugees globally, and ACH are one of the partners they are working within the UK to make this pledge a reality. You can read more about our employment courses with Starbucks here. 

2018

2018 is all about continuing our work with employers to rethink hiring refugees. We now have a solid relationship with Starbucks and multiple courses have already taken place this year across Bristol and the West Midlands. Most recently we’ve partnered with UK Youth, a charity who work with young people to build brighter futures, to run Starbucks courses that enable young refugees to find employment. You can read more about our Youth Action course here.

This year ACH also had a re-brand for our 10th anniversary which reflects the extensive work that we do. We have also decided to change the #rethinkingrefugee logo as part of this rebrand to match our new colour scheme and fit in with the organisation as a whole.

Another achievement of 2018 is that we have become an apprenticeship provider to work with the wider community and encourage businesses to create a more diverse workforce. Find out more about our apprenticeships here.

The latest development for #rethinkingrefugee has seen it move away from being just a campaign to become the overarching dialogue of our organisation, giving us a sharp focus on how we can move forward in a way that benefits the people we help in the best way. This has led to ACH holding discussions nationally and internationally with fellow organisations who recognise that our senior staff are distinguished lived experience leaders. These companies also have the same intentions as ACH; to change the narrative of refugees.

We are continually developing #rethinkingrefugee to respond to refugees’ changing needs and the challenges they come up against. A huge thank you to all of those who have been a part of our #rethinkingrefugee campaign so far, from those who have engaged with us on social media to those who have offered housing and employment to our tenants and learners.

To continue the conversation use #rethinkingrefugee on social media, or for more information on how we can work together please contact yasmeen.shaeik@ach.org.uk.