The charity chosen for Bishop Andrew’s Lent Appeal 2025 is Refuweegee.
Refuweegee’s website and OSCR
Scottish Charity Number SC046843
Videos
smallVOICE Podcast with Selina Hayes
www.smallvoice.org.uk/podcast-extra-selina-hayes-of-refuweegee
Refuweegee
Making good things happen every day
Refuweegee is a blend of the nouns refugee and ‘weegie’ (a nickname for Glaswegians). Since 2015, we have been helping forcibly displaced people build new lives in Glasgow, and across Scotland. Until 2022, Glasgow was Scotland’s only city with dispersal status, hence the city-wide focus. Glasgow remains home to the largest intensity of asylum seekers in the UK; over 5,000.
Glasgow helps way more asylum seekers than Manchester who help 2,722 asylum seekers; Liverpool 2,738 and Belfast 2,299.
Refuweegee helps all forcibly displaced people, and anyone from the existing Scottish community. This intentional act safeguards against perceptions of help being restricted to one group of people. Refuweegee receives walk-ins and referrals from 46 charitable and statutory partners. These partners are seeking emergency support for people including clothing; toiletries; household items and furniture; phones and devices as well as food. We help approximately 300 people every week, treating everyone with kindness and dignity.
The need we are addressing
Refugees are able to work and access universal credit: asylum seekers can do neither. An asylum seeker detained in a hotel (and we say detained because the image of ‘hotel’ grossly inflates the nasty guest houses and run-down cheap hotels in which people have to live) receive a weekly allowance of just £8.86 per person. One pack of nappies for the week, one daily bus ticket in Glasgow: both would take more than 60% of someone’s weekly budget.
Full, healthy lives are impossible on these meagre figures. Instead, people are financially exclude people from society, forcing them to make difficult decisions between food, heat and healthcare on a daily basis.
The recently arrived community is made-up of extremely vulnerable people with complex issues. They are coping with trauma, battling isolation and homesickness.
Our values
We treat everyone with kindness and dignity. We are tenacious: we help people for as long as they need it – waiting for an asylum claim to be heard and refugee status to be granted can take years. Sometimes, recently arrived people present to us within days of arriving. Others can take weeks before presenting at our HQ to ask for help.
We’re here for all displaced people as long as they need us and we don’t give up.
What we do and what we want to do more of
Our strap line, to encourage belonging and empathy is “We’re all fae somewhere”.
We exist to address all kinds of poverty faced by displaced people; food, dignity, transport, digital and opportunity.
- Running our free shop distributing everything that people need to exist including clothes, baby items, toys and toiletries.
- Collecting and delivering furniture and all household items essential to make a home.
- Reimbursing bus and train fares for visitors, giving people autonomy of movement.
- Distributing food from our food pantry including weekly fresh fruit, veg and eggs (which can be cooked in a kettle).
- Delivering food parcels to people unable to travel into the city centre.
- Creating opportunities for people to volunteer at our spaces, giving people back a sense of purpose and a shape to their weeks.
- Running sewing, painting and crafting classes.
- Taking people out to social and cultural events: football matches, music gigs, theatre and cinema outings to help address isolation and improve mental health.
Since 2016 we have given out more than 32,000 welcome packs: rucksacks filled with donated essential items and small luxuries, finished with an individual ‘letter from a local’ where one stranger welcomes another.
Lastly, our Education Manager works within primary and secondary schools across the west of Scotland, delivering awareness raising workshops about what it means to be forcibly displaced and facilitating their help.
Personal Stories
In September 2024, we received a referral from British Red Cross. A heavily pregnant woman, Afi, living in accommodation facilitated by Mears (who have the UK Government contract to provide accommodation and support for asylum seekers) was feeling so cold it was affecting her sleep. Afi was told by Mears she would have to make an official request to which they would respond to within 21 days. She had also been advised that the request might be rejected as she had been provided with ‘standard bedding’. Our Donations Co-ordinator compiled items for Afi including a duvet, bed linen, hot water bottle, a cosy blanket and a pamper gift set of toiletries. This parcel was delivered to Afi within two hours. We then made an emergency appointment for Afi to come to our free shop where we collated items for the imminent arrival of her baby, removing anxiety about how she would gather essentials. Afi and her baby now visit our safe-space two days a week hang out. Like many of our volunteers who first come to us needing help, Afi is an active volunteer and has made connections with others; has improved her well-being; has purpose in her life and feels valued.
Samuel had moved accommodation into a one-bed flat with no possessions at all; no bed, chair, cooker or fridge. Our team delivered these essential items, plus duvet, bed-linen, crockery and cutlery to help make this barren flat a home. When sharing a cup of tea with Samuel, the delivery team recognised how desperately quiet the flat was so made a secondary trip that day to deliver a tv and play station, giving Samuel essential secondary noise.
Ade began volunteering at Refuweegee as part of our collection & delivery team. He shared his love of football with us while unpacking the van. We identified an opportunity for Ade to undertake a traineeship as a supported coach with Motherwell FC where he continues to volunteer.
Refuweegee in 2025
Refuweegee responds to each person as they present, meeting them at their point of need for as long as they need it. Our commitment to maintaining this open-ended flexible support makes Refuweegee unique in the sector but it’s heavy and hard on staff resources. Simultaneously, we are in the throes of a housing crisis: Glasgow City Council declared a housing emergency on 30 November 2023, followed by the Scottish Government declaring a national housing emergency on 15 May 2024.
Our team are handling increasingly high numbers of street homeless people, including multiple families and single teenagers; too old to be considered an unaccompanied minor, but still highly vulnerable. Street homeless people need – and deserve – intense help. As social work services are under ever-increasing pressure, Refuweegee is picking up the well-being of displaced people who are alone and in urgent need.
In our tenth anniversary year, Refuweegee moved into our new office space: five floors of office space in George Square given to us for a peppercorn rent of £1 per annum. We will be able to do so much more in this new space as well as bring together all elements of the charity under one roof. We anticipated much more cross service delivery: people coming in for advice will be able to use the shop; those using the shop will be able to take part in workshops and classes etc. Our community congregate in George Square so we couldn’t be closer to those who need us.
We receive no funding from the Scottish Government or Glasgow City Council: we’re only able to do this because of incredible people like the communities of the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway: thank you.
Ways to Donate
JustGiving Page
Click here for Bishop Andrew’s Lent Appeal in aid of Refuweegee (justgiving.com)
The preferred and easiest way is to donate electronically and instantly to the appeal, either for individuals or for treasurers sending collected charge donations. For individual donations, it means that Gift Aid can be added to your donation, adding 25p to every pound donated (if you pay tax). Whether donating as an individual or as a church via your Treasurer, please add the name of your church to the Donation Notes (this is possible even if you prefer to remain anonymous). Please donate through this page (which donation goes directly to the Lent Appeal) by clicking the link above.
Cheque Payments
For those who prefer to send cheques, they should be sent to the Diocesan Office. Cheque payments should be made payable to Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway, please include a note to confirm the name of your charge and your contact details. Send to:
Scottish Episcopal Church
Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway
Bishop’s Lent Appeal 2025
49 Cochrane Street
Glasgow G1 1HL
Money will be transferred to Refuweegee on a regular basis, and included in the final JustGiving total. This will also apply to the following method.
Electronic Transfer to the Diocese
Although it remains easier to transfer electronically via our own JustGiving page, it remains possible to do so through the Diocesan account. Send by BACS to the following details:
Sort code: 83-41-00
Account Number: 00162089
Account name: DIOCESE OF GLASGOW & GALLOWAY
Please use the reference Lent25 and your quota number for ID, and also email Iolanthe Stack at iolanthe@glasgow.anglican.org to confirm a donation has been sent, and from which charge it has been sent. Iolanthe will acknowledge receipt by email. If you are sending a personal donation this way, also use Lent25 and your surname for ID, again copying in Iolanthe for information, and she will reply to confirm receipt.
