On 19th July 2016, Amber Rudd, the new Home Secretary announced the launch of a Community Sponsorship Resettlement Scheme for refugee families.
The scheme aims to open up a new resettlement route for refugee families to settle in the UK, and is based on community organisations taking on the responsibility for planning and paying for and arranging the wrap-around resettlement of a refugee family.
Additional guidance for people wishing to find out more about Community Sponsorship can be found here.
To be successful, the scheme (and sponsors) will rely on the active support of the Local Authority and advice of the Regional Strategic Migration Partnership. Although this initiative has been announced, the fine detail has yet to be worked out, and Leeds City Council and Migration Yorkshire (the Regional Strategic Migration Partnership) are still working out how this scheme might work in Leeds.
LASSN works closely with both Leeds City Council and Migration Yorkshire and we share a common aim of involving people and communities directly in the welcome and resettlement of refugees in Leeds. LASSN would like to see an increase in the number of refugees resettled in Leeds, and will continue to encourage our partners to support this.
For the time being, we’re seeing how things work out, and we will keep you posted on developments.
If you wish to get involved in this scheme, you could follow the instructions in the guidance above and contact Migration Yorkshire for more details.
However, we will update our information as soon as we have more details to share.
