How does Community Sponsorship benefit Ripon?
For those who understand the plight of refugees
- There’s an opportunity to personally make a life-changing difference to a family in need
- It’s a chance to respond to the global refugee crisis
- It’s a great way to come together as a community and do something really positive
- It’s an opportunity to use your skills – or discover new ones
- It’s a way to get to know new people in your local community and even make new friends.
For the City of Ripon
Ripon is not a very diverse place, and it’s beneficial for the city to engage with issues going on in the world around us.
People do care, but often don’t know how to find a way to express that care. When we’ve invited refugees and asylum-seekers from places like Hull and Wakefield to come and have a day out in Ripon, some of them have been stopped in the street by members of the public who wanted to welcome them, say hello and talk to them.
For the existing Syrian families in Ripon
We only have 3 Syrian families in Ripon, which can feel quite precarious for them. In Harrogate and Knaresborough, for example, there are around 12 resettled families.
As much as they love the peace and safety of Ripon, and our excellent schools, the Syrian families in Ripon struggle with isolation. They’d love to welcome another family so that:
- there’s always someone who can help out
- there are others to share important days with, like Ramadan or Eid, or the birth of a child here or the death of a relative back home
- there’s a big enough pool of people to be able to find a friend they’d choose for themselves
- they can maintain the practice of their culture and language, especially for their children
- being able to share the shopping so they don’t have to go to Bradford or Leeds so often for things like halal meat and Syrian spices.