Action Foundation

Charity Details

Full Name: Action Foundation

Field: Community Services        

Founded: 2006

Headquarters: Newcastle upon Tyne, NEI 2JQ

Charity No.: 1132051

History and Activities

Action Foundation was established by Julian Prior in 2006, as a response to the needs of the local community of City Church in Newcastle. Asylum seekers in Newcastle were often left without support and accommodation if their asylum application had been refused. For a variety of reasons, and often as a result of persecution or war, some families and individuals simply cannot return to their home countries. With no recourse to public funds and not having the ‘Right to Work’, people seeking asylum were entirely dependent on charity for food, shelter and advice. Julian and his team recognised the injustice and deplorable situation asylum seekers were experiencing and decided to make a change.

In the early days, Julian and the team were able to house three asylum seekers in single property which they rented from a sympathetic landlord. The charity was affiliated to ‘Open Door North East’, an asylum seekers housing charity based in Middlesbrough. As the operation grew, however, Julian was able to establish an independent charity and in 2009 launched Action Foundation. Fast forward to 2017 and the Action Foundation was able to support 1,676 asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants with the help of 224 volunteers. The charity is now able to focus on delivering a range of services, many of which are not being provided by others and have developed four distinct projects addressing destitution, poverty and exclusion.

New refugees (who had a positive decision on their asylum claim and can stay in the UK) were also in need of supported housing to avoid homelessness as they transition into mainstream systems of welfare, housing and employment. Action Foundation, therefore, set up a letting service to provide easy-access privately rented housing to refugees whilst managing philanthropic landlords’ properties. This project is starting to generate a modest trading income for the charity and has the potential for this to grow. However, as well as managing properties for asylum seekers and refugees the charity has also developed a hosting scheme that recruits, trains, and matches volunteer 'hosts' with a spare bedroom with destitute asylum seekers to live with them for a short period of time. Over the last year, the three housing projects supported 118 clients in 20 properties and 21 hosts’ homes. In 2017 the charity also purchased its first property but aspire to further develop a property portfolio to provide greater stability to philanthropic endeavours.

Realising that many of its clients could not communicate effectively in English and were unable to access mainstream English classes they also started an English school. This is run by volunteers to provide a social place to learn practical, basic English to enable them to integrate effectively into life in the North East. The school has grown significantly to providing 40 classes per week in Newcastle and Sunderland, reaching 1,541 migrants in 2017. Many of the students would be unable to access mainstream English classes elsewhere without the Foundations support. Last year the charity developed resources and a training programme to equip other community groups across the North East to deliver entry-level English classes to migrants in their community.

Action Foundation is heavily dependent on grant income. This income totalled £509,614 in 2018. Most of the grant income received is restricted to specific projects or for use to meet certain objectives. The largest grants that the Action Foundation received was from Big Lottery (£105,098), the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (£60,000), the Nationwide Building Society (£49,502) and a £30,000 unrestricted grant from the Garfield Weston Foundation. Unrestricted income is urgently required however to help protect vital language services when Big Lottery’s grant come to an end in August 2019.

Vital Statistics (year to 31/04/2018)

Website
http://actionfoundation.org.uk

References