Settle Area Refugee Support

We do small scale fundraising, collect donations of small household goods, some clothing and bikes. We put on events such as public talks, films and concerts.

We work closely with Pendle New Neighbours, based in Nelson (see below)

We work with Ukrainians in our area and nearby and with those who support them.

Refugee Support Europe is a small charity we support (see below).

We have pledged support for Craven District of Sanctuary and the national City of Sanctuary

Settle Area Refugee Support has a Facebook page and is part of the Craven Refugee Support Network

To donate financially please contact Angie on angie.pedley@gmail.com for bank details

2024 EVENTS

Supporting Ukraine

A workshop held in Settle Victoria Hall in February 2024 attracted 30 people who made 11 camouflage covers for helmets to protect defenders. It was organised by Alison Marshall who has visited Ukraine several times and learned about the making of camouflage nets while there.
Report from the Craven Herald here

2023 EVENTS

A talk in October by Ian McAuslane from Refugee Support Europe about Aid with Dignity was well received and £148 collected for him to pass on.

Refugee Week 2023

Ukrainian music and food

This session in Settle Victoria Hall held during Refugee Week was popular. Mariia Petrovska played the bandura.

Refugee Week 2023

Poetry and cake

A session at Settle library, where a display had been up for Refugee Week in June, attracted a different set of supporters and was a very enjoyable occasion. We hope to repeat it with another similar event..Laura Strickland read a poem she had written especially for the occasion

Donated technology

We work with Solidaritech in Bradford by collecting used laptops, mobile phones & tablets for repair & redistribution to asylum seekers & refugees.

Supporting Refugee Support Europe

One of our members volunteered with Refugee Support Europe at their Dignity Centre in Cyprus before the lockdown and we support them financially when we can. They sell goods made in their sewing room available online at https://refumade.org/

A second supporter volunteered in Moldova with RSE at the beginning of the Ukraine crisis of February 2022. A Russian speaker from the group has volunteered on the Polish border helping refugees coming out of Ukraine with KHARPP https://kharpp.c om/

Two talks about Ukraine

in 2023 at Settle Victoria Hall were very well attended and donations collected there for RSE

Tim Smith, photographer showed photographs he took before and during the independence of Ukraine in 1991, and spoke about his travels at the time. Not many journalists or photographers had been in Ukraine at that time. He also showed interesting photos of the Ukrainian community in Bradford and Manchester.Alison Marshall spoke about a friend of her grandfather called Jerry Berman from South Africa, who had witnessed the Holodomor, or Great Hunger, in the early 1930s. She had discovered letters to her grandfather which are now in the museum in Kiev. From Wikipedia “Meyer Fortes corresponded with his close friend Jerry Berman, who in the early 1930s worked in the USSR as a civil engineer and documented the famine in his private letters. In 2021, the granddaughter of Fortes donated these letters to the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv.^[4]^[5]^[6]“

The talk was followed by the film Mr Jones

Other films we have shown in 2022/3 are Limbo and Hostile

Supporting refugees here

Since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine we have worked with a local group Settle Supports Ukraine to support Ukrainians locally & across Craven. Several events organised have been well attended, including a trip to Blackpool Illuminations & to see the pantomime at Settle Victoria Hall.

We have contributed to the Kildwick monthly coffee morning organised by the admirable Skipton & Craven Ukrainian Refugee Support. There is also a Gargrave, Coniston Cold, Hellifield Ukrainian support group who work with us.

Supporting Pendle New Neighbours

Class members receiving their certificates July 2023

Our members assist with English language teaching run by a charity Pendle New Neighbours in Nelson, Lancashire where asylum seekers & refugees mix. There are premises in Nelson open Monday to Friday 10-1 plus a drop in Thursdays 1-3. Phone for more information. For more information about this contact Phil McCarthy on 07793036745 or check out the PNN Facebook page

We take any donated bicycles we can find across to Nelson where asylum seekers are very pleased to receive them.

An informal buddying contact is possible where you are paired up with an asylum seeker to have a conversation in English once a week via WhatsApp. Ask for more information.

There is a café in Victoria Park in Nelson which serves Syrian food twice a week which is worth visiting.

Visits to Settle and the Dales

After the interruption of the pandemic visits have started again.

In summer 2019 we hosted a day visit for a group of young people from Syrian families based in Nelson. It was a very enjoyable day but major repetition has been thwarted by the Covid pandemic. A smaller group of Syrian ladies visited Malham Tarn with us in August 2021. Some day visits happened in summer 2022 made possible by the loan of a minibus from a school in Pendle.

During August 22 a group from a class in Nelson taught by Michael Day, visited Malham and then the home of Christine Dittman in Airton. Michael wrote:

“Today, the group of refugees and asylum-seekers I teach in Nelson came over to Malham, walked to the Cove and back, then drove to Airton for lunch in the garden of my fellow-teacher, Christine.

They are from Ukraine, Iran, Syria, Georgia, Turkey, and Albania: a smashing bunch of people whom I love teaching!”

In 2022, we were pleased to host an event for Refugee Week at Victoria Hall in Settle. Syrian food was on sale in the outdoor cafe followed by an afternoon showing of the film Limbo . We count Victoria Hall among our valued supporters in the area https://www.settlevictoriahall.org.uk/