Happy New Year to all our partners, service users, team members, and supporters! As we bid farewell to a challenging but impactful 2021, we want to convey our heartfelt gratitude to you all for everything you did to make this year so successful for our nonprofit. Despite the socioeconomic challenges created by the Covid-19 situation, many of you selflessly gave your time, treasure, and talent to support our cause. As a result of your compassion and generosity, we succeeded in:
Supporting many individuals and groups disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and living in the worst forms of destitution.
Mobilising a strong team of volunteers representing over 40 nationalities.
Receiving/Rescuing about a quarter of a million Pound worth of food from partners, and various donors.
Distributing over one hundred thousand meals and snacks in the fight against hunger.
Handing out thousands of essential items including clothes, shoes, bags, toiletries, blankets, hats, gloves, masks, disinfectants, sleeping bags, books, first aid kits, etc.
Giving out loads of Christmas presents this December.
Distributing Covid-19 palliatives to struggling families in Nigeria to cushion the economic impact of the pandemic.
Giving small financial grants to a number of individuals living in extreme poverty in Africa.
Helping some students with school fee payments and donating free books to disadvantaged kids.
Donating basic supplies to poor hospital patients and contributing cash towards clearing their medical bills.
A Short Video Clip of Some of our Activities in 2021
In line with our core values of accountability, probity, integrity and honesty, this review is intended to give you an insight into what we have done this year. Comprehensive details of our financials will be released in our Annual Report and made publicly available at the end of the fiscal year.
As you will see from our financial statement when it is released in a few months, we have not been good at raising money! Since we began operation seven years ago, our organisation has only filled out one formal application for financial grant; we made one request and were graciously offered a second small grant on the same platform this year. Only one crowdfunding campaign has been done on our behalf. It was initiated by a team member but failed to generate momentum. Consequently, apart from a few benevolent individuals and organisations who chipped in to support us with some money, we have not had any substantial financial donations.
Once more, we have had to fall back on lean family finances and have maxed out personal credit cards, overdrafts and store cards to meet some urgent needs. Please, get in touch if you would love to donate or if you can help with fundraising. We have a growing list of financial needs.
It Is About Community
This year, as a result of the pandemic, we focused largely on London our home city and succeeded in mobilising a strong multicultural team of committed volunteers with diverse experiences; drawn from all six major continents. At a typical outreach event, you are likely to find Chinese, Africans, Arabs and Caucasians from various social and religious backgrounds working together as one united community. In a day when discrimination and intolerance have become burning subjects, our volunteers are demonstrating that we can all live together in harmony irrespective of racial, social, religious or cultural affiliations.
Not Your Usual Food Programme
Our food programme is special. Its peculiarity is partly evident in the operational strategy of our soup kitchen. In a deliberate effort to reduce some of the stigma associated with standing on a breadline, we have adopted a dignified community buffet approach, making the soup kitchen accessible primarily to the homeless and available to regular members of the community struggling to feed.
As a human rights organisation with a strong emphasis on social and economic rights, we recognise the need to not only facilitate the provision of food to hungry members of the community but to ensure that the meals are healthy, balanced, nutritious, and adequate. We are also conscious of the need to make the service consistent with the obligation to promote the dignity of our service users. Our primary constituency consists of homeless people, refugees, rough sleepers, and individuals/families experiencing destitution. Therefore, we have striven to make our menu as expansive as possible to cater for various tastes including vegetarians and vegans. For instance, there were over 50 different food items on the menu at our Christmas Eve event. In addition to the usual European selection, we had some Chinese food, Indian cuisine, and African Jollof rice!
Feeding the Hungry, Reducing Food Waste, Saving the Environment
We received loads of donated food this year as our donors took up the challenge of feeding some of the over 8 million people grappling with food poverty in the UK. A significant amount of the food we got would have ended up as waste, further compounding the problem of global warming and climate change. According to a UN report, globally, a third of all food that is produced annually for human consumption (1.3 billion tonnes)- gets lost or wasted. If we could rescue one-fourth of current food waste, it would be enough to feed almost 900 million hungry people on the planet!* Though the UK has made significant progress in reducing food waste, but with almost 10 million tonnes of food going to waste annually, we are among the top 10 countries with the highest food waste in the world. Much of this waste contributes to the pollution problem that is destroying our beloved planet. By partnering with UK supermarkets and businesses to redistribute surplus food and prevent wastage, we helped in reducing the environmental impact of wasted food and contributed towards preventing climate change.
While we have not been very successful at raising money, we have been extremely good at getting food for service users! This year, Refuge Network was able to source food running into almost a quarter of a million pounds from various donors. We want to thank our food partners and the many stores, restaurants, businesses, organisations and individuals who donated generously to support our food programme. Because of your kind donations, we were able to make over one hundred thousand meals and snacks available to individuals and families through our soup kitchen, outreach events, and mobile food bank this year.
Beyond Food
Through Our pandemic outreach projects, we not only distributed food but also gave out many essential items including clothes, shoes, bags, hats, gloves, blankets, face masks, toiletries, and other material goods.
In solidarity with elderly people who were badly affected by the Covid-19 crisis, we donated loads of flowers to several nursing homes.
Importantly, from the first day of the year when we partnered with the Dan Cates Foundation to deliver dozens of Nike donated trainers to service users, to the last full week of the year when we hosted the community to a special Christmas buffet and gift event, we have remained active on the streets of London every week in the last twelve months providing a listening ear, giving friendly hugs, and offering advice and various forms of support to our homeless friends on the streets.
No Poverty Campaign Nigeria
This year, our No Poverty Campaign Charitable Foundation team in Nigeria, marked the International Day of Charity with charitable events in parts of Lagos, and Abuja the national capital. The project was coordinated by Dr Seliatu Ohimor, with the support of our amazing Nigerian Directors and volunteers.
Two laudable initiatives, aimed at contributing towards the achievement of Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) 1, 2, 3 and 4, were carried out in this regard:
The Right To Education Initiative
An outreach to provide indigent children with notebooks, textbooks, writing materials, school bags, school fees, etc.
The Right To Health Initiative
An outreach to help financially-constrained/indigent patients in hospitals with toiletries, food and financial assistance towards offsetting medical bills and purchasing drugs.
To achieve a wide reach of impact and transformation of lives, these initiatives were
carried out in 3 different locations in Nigeria:
Abuja
Lagos Island
Lagos Mainland
Impact Summary
175 children were provided various school relief materials including textbooks, notebooks, pencils, pens, school bags and snacks.
9 children had portions of their school debts paid off.
17 patients in different hospitals got material and/or financial relief to meet their healthcare needs. This assistance included toiletries, food provision, cash donations for purchase of drugs or to offset outstanding medical bills.
Going Forward
It has been a very impactful year, and encomiums have been pouring in from grateful service users. Special greetings to our partners at M&S, Sainsbury’s, Aldi, Gail's, Fresco Frigo, Lidl, PZ Food, Toiletries Amnesty, the National Theatre of Great Britain, volunteers from Morgan Stanley, the ICC Mission, the Career Guidance Service of the London School of Economics, our friend Mo, and the Dan Cates Foundation, and others too numerous to mention. We are grateful to all our donors, volunteers, service users, partners, friends and family for all you did to make this year a highly successful one for our nonprofit despite the pandemic. You gave hope and provided succour to many members of our community throughout the year. Because of your kindness, many had reasons to smile, and their faith in humanity was strengthened. Thank you for the joy you brought. Thank you for the empty bellies you filled. Thank you for the naked bodies you clothed. Thank you for enabling many to look good and feel good. Thank you for covering their shame and protecting their dignity. Thank you for supporting the little work we are doing at Refuge Network. With friends like you, we and our beloved pals on the streets can step into 2022 with confidence and look toward the future with hope. Happy New Year!
Reference
* UNEP, Worldwide Food Waste https://www.unep.org/thinkeatsave/get-informed/worldwide-food-waste
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