When refugees and other migrants reach the UK, they face a hostile environment. Without help, many will be forcibly sent back to the wars, persecution and misery they have fled.
Right to Remain has today launched a crowdfunding appeal to produce a vital guide that can help save lives. The Right to Remain Toolkit is a unique resource that will help people to find solidarity and sanctuary in the UK.
Donate to our crowdfunder
This is an opportunity for you to get involved with a practical solidarity project. This is why it is necessary…
Over 60% of asylum applications refused
The Toolkit will help people to find advice, and to overcome the legal barriers
30,000 locked up in detention centres
The Toolkit will help people to prepare, prevent, and get out of detention
Legal Aid no longer available
The Toolkit will help families to understand their rights and fight for justice
Over 6,000 refused asylum seekers are destitute
The Toolkit will help people to get back into the legal system,
back into society, taking action for justice
The Toolkit: information for action
Our Toolkit will help people to understand and navigate the complex legal system, find support and solidarity, overcome the barriers to justice, fight for their rights and secure the right to remain.
It’s an essential resource, and we will distribute it free to groups all across the UK who are supporting refugees and migrants.
We know this project will work: we did it before. You can help us do it again.
An urgent appeal
We first produced a Toolkit in 2013. Legal changes mean community groups across the UK, supporting asylum-seekers and other migrants day-in-day-out, need a brand new version… and they need it urgently.
Cuts to Legal Aid have seen free immigration legal services reduced by 50%. Every day, refugees and migrants are being refused, threatened with deportation, in desperate need of help.
Despite the outpouring of public support for migrants seeking sanctuary, the “refugees welcome” movement, the UK government is introducing further measures to make it even more difficult for people to reach safety in the UK, and new laws to make life, and the legal process, harder to get through.
With your help, we can publish this resource, and open up access to support for thousands of people to get through the system, to find safety, establish their rights, and rebuild their lives.
What We Need & What We Will Do
The Toolkit will be an online resource, constantly updated with the latest legal information, but the community groups in our networks need the printed books too. To publish the web resource and print 1000 books, will cost £10,000.
Your donation will be used to research and write in plain language the very latest legal and procedural information, and the guide to taking action for the right to remain.
If we reach our target, we will produce a brand new, user-friendly web resource, and print 1000 copies of the 100+ page book, for free distribution to community groups across the UK.
If we do not reach our target, we will still be able to make a difference. The more funds we raise, the more people we can reach. We may have to hold off on the book printing until the funds are secured, but every penny raised in this appeal will go towards producing the Toolkit.
About Right to Remain
Right to Remain has been supporting groups and individuals seeking justice in the immigration and asylum system for 20 years. The organisation is managed by a voluntary committee of refugee and migrant experts-by-experience, academics and activists, and we employ just two workers: our strength is in the network of community groups we support, a growing movement for migration justice.
You can support the growth of this movement by helping us to produce this resource.
We first produced a Toolkit in 2013, and it has been an indispensable resource. In addition to the website, we printed 2,000 books and distributed them free to community groups and individuals across the country – we couldn’t keep up with demand. There have been many changes to the syetm since 2013 – massive cuts to Legal Aid, new legislation and rules.
We desperately need to produce and distribute a new updated, bigger and better Toolkit, to assist people struggling under the new system.
What people said about the original Toolkit:
“incredibly comprehensive and accessible” … “gives you the tools to fight injustice”
“I had no lawyer. I had to represent myself in the courts. I would never have got my papers without the Toolkit”
“Just wanted to say how useful we have found the Toolkit: it is such an invaluable resource to be able to talk through with asylum-seekers what to expect”
“I must thank you for your toolkit. When someone first arrives in our city, a member of our organisation (who has been through the interviews) will talk the person through what it will be like. With the loss of legal advice services on immigration and the asylum process, it makes a big difference.”
Other Ways You Can Help
You may not be able to contribute financially to this appeal, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help:
- You can help to get the word out – make some noise about the campaign!
- Spread the word – on Facebook, Twitter, use the Indiegogo share tools, and ask your friends to share too.
- Do a collection with your friends, community group, your place of worship, your trade union, at your workplace, university, college or school.
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