General

The last few weeks has been incredibly busy with guests arriving daily, hosts bringing them into the support hub to collect phone cards, and to access the donations unit, and pick up free boat tickets

We have outgrown downstairs so we have had a team of volunteers helping us to turn upstairs into a relaxing and therapeutic area as well as helping us to maximise the storage space in the donations hub. 

Coffee morning

Our very popular coffee morning attracts between 40-45 people every Friday, and 60 people attended a number of registration sessions for ESOL support classes, with new people coming through every day at the moment

ESOL (English for speakers of other languages)

Our ESOL starts from 20 June at the Shrewsbury Hub, and is happening in a variety places around the county. So far we have six classes of 12 starting at the hub.

We'll concentrate on areas in the county which are not well serviced with ESOL over the coming weeks. 

Job and career guidance

We have started hosting Landau on a Wednesday, giving work and job-related guidance from the hub.

Audrey and Rachel will be there every Wednesday for the foreseeable future.

Yoga

The yoga class is extremely popular, with a full class every week led by the very talented local Ukrainian Olesia, who runs it from Jenna Blair’s studio in Belle Vue. 

Olesia is planning on taking the classes around the county. 

Support around the county

New coffee mornings and support hubs have been popping up around the county, with hubs now in Ludlow, Oswestry, Wem, Ellesmere, Bridgnorth, Market Drayton, Ellesmere, Telford, Church Stretton and Shrewsbury.

There may be more out there that we're unaware of, so please do let us know if you hear of anything happening in your area and we'll share it with the guests and hosts.

Community contacts meetings

Our next community contacts Zoom meeting is on Thursday evening.

Get in touch if you’re interested in starting a gathering or coffee morning in your area: Amanda.jones@shropshiresupportsrefugees.co.uk

Volunteer recruitment 

SSR have partnered up with The Shropshire Infrastructure Partnership to recruit and process the applications of new volunteers.

This has been going well but we always need more, so please get in touch if you’re interested in helping is to support refugees And Ukrainian guests in the county: 

Info@shropshiresupportsrefugees.co.uk

Padlet resource pool 

We've created a resource pool that we'll be adding to week by week - a quick and easy way to keep new hosts and guests up to date.

Refugee week 2022 - 'Healing'

Refugee week starts next week and we have a fantastic series of events available for people to attend, thanks to the hard work of Niki Holmes and all the people volunteering their time.

What’s App groups

The Whats App groups are well used, with 96 people in the hosts' group and 95 people in the guests' group. It’s great seeing everyone helping each other out in those!