Refugee and asylum-seeking women

According to the UN, refugee and asylum-seeking women are more likely to be affected by violence than any other group of women. Women claiming asylum often go through the process voiceless and traumatized.

Aim of the programme

We aim to fund work with the most vulnerable refugee and asylum-seeking women who have experienced rape, torture or other forms of violence in their home countries.

We appreciate that all women seeking refuge have support needs, but our funding is focused on those who are the most vulnerable, both in terms of the legacy of past abuses and the threat of future exploitation in the UK. We seek to work with organisations that understand the gendered nature of the violence and inequalities faced by these women.

There are two strands to the programme:

• Crisis Support: We will fund support services for refugee and asylum-seeking women that help them cope with the trauma they have experienced; this could include counselling or group work. We will fund legal support that recognises past trauma and enables women to disclose the full stories behind their asylum claims. We will also support health initiatives that help women with the impact of trauma on their mental and physical wellbeing.
• Training: We are also interested in funding work to develop training and support packages that improve and embed knowledge and practice about how to work with this vulnerable group of women. Training can be targeted at refugee or mainstream organisations.

Outcomes

Your work will need to deliver one or more of the following outcomes:

• Refugee and asylum-seeking women will feel more able to cope with the trauma they have experienced.
• Women will get the specialist support they need to make successful applications for asylum around rape, violence and torture.
• Organisations will have increased knowledge of the needs of vulnerable refugee and asylum seeking women and be able to meet their needs more effectively.

Other important information

• We will give priority to organisations with a strong track record of working with this hard to reach group.
• We will NOT consider applications focusing on integration work for refugee and asylum seekers. Ineligible activities include job-seeking programmes, volunteering initiatives, and befriending schemes to alleviate isolation.

You can apply for all or some of your project costs, but we encourage you to get some of your funding from other sources if you can. Generally, we will not fund the full cost of applications made by charities with an annual income over £10 million. Our grants usually vary between £25,000 and £40,000 per year for a maximum of three years, and rarely exceed this upper limit.

If your work is national or provides a model that could be replicated, we may be able to fund at a higher level. Please call us to discuss this before you submit an application.

You should also read our UK Grants Strategy

This programme is open for on-line applications from 13th August until midday on 19th October 2012.