Never too late to say Thank You!

A Big Thankyou to All who have Supported Migrant Advocacy Service in 2024 and into 2025 

The first quarter of 2025 is over and we are hurtling towards summer already!  How time flies when you’re busy!!!!  

A Massive Thankyou to all our Staff and Volunteers! 

First and foremost, a big shout out to all the staff and volunteers who make our activities possible: the Advocacy team at the Contact Centre, the volunteers at the Community Fridge,  Kingsympton Community Centre,and the Hong Kong Welcome Cafe and the ESOL class teacher and volunteers.  Not least thanks go to our integration support officers who get pulled left, right and centre who helped to deliver a variety of projects and activities in 2024 and settle in recently displaced families from international conflict zones.

We are immensely thankful to you all - an extraordinary team of volunteers and staff whose passion and hard work have helped Migrant Advocacy Service thrive this year, despite various challenges!

In 2024, we were nominated for the Kings Award for Voluntary Services but unfortunately did not make it through the last hurdle due to the strength of competition - next year inshallah!

A particular challenge in 2024 was all the drama surrounding relocating the Community Fridge but we won’t go into that now - you can read more about that in this blog post ….Our new Community Fridge

A Gigantic Thankyou to all our Funders - thanks for believing in us!

Without our funders, none of this work could happen! 

Kingston Council, The National Lottery Community Fund, The Mayor of London’s Office, the Home Office, CSR3 Community Roots, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. 

Donations have also come from the Coop store in Surbiton, Lidl via neighbourly.com, New Look Store in Kingston and the Surbiton chapter of the Rotary Club for the Community Fridge.

And a Huge Thankyou to all our Partners & Supporters

We are immensely grateful to those who have partnered with us in 2024.

 AfC (Achieving for Children), Kingston Council, Welcare House, Kingsnympton Youth and Community Centre, the Kingston Good Food Group, Kingston Adult Education, Kingston Quaker Centre, Kingston Hospital, Girls Not Brides, Karma Nirvana, FORWARD UK, Neighbourly.com, the Co-op Community Fridge Network.

Looking Back at our Activities and Projects in 2024:

In addition to the backbone of our service - the Crisis Advocacy - which runs throughout the year, in 2024 we ran a variety of informative talks, awareness days, seminars, healthy cooking sessions, coffee mornings, wellbeing sessions and social catchups, with delicious food bringing the community together! We have done pilates classes, creative writing workshops and various arts and crafts. We have celebrated community and marked events with our summer Barbeque, our Christmas parties and International Women's Day. 

MAS has also been part of providing kitchen spaces for people without cooking facilities and helping Kingston Hospital to reuse crutches, physio boots and walking frames when they were previously deemed only good for scrap disposal.

A new Home Office contract has enabled us to start supporting those with an immigration status through the eVisa process. 

Another huge success for MAS was being recognised for our role in campaigning as part of the partnership of Girls Not Brides UK, alongside IKWRO, Karma Nirvana and FORWARD - we were nominated for the Campaigning Team of the Year by Charity Times Awards 2024. This was in recognition that in April 2022, the government passed the bill to raise the legal age of marriage to 18 after 10 years of campaigning, which was implemented on the 27th February 2023. 

Looking Forward to 2025 

2025 has already had a brisk start.  Our first project - which came like a gift out of the blue - being to support Kingston residents with  brand new high spec chromebooks and wifi dongles and 6 hours of personalised IT training.  The digital divide is one of the biggest challenges that we see facing the people that we support.  In the end, we have secured this offer for 46 Kingston residents.

With the IT in place, we will be able to communicate with people in online meetings, teach English online and show how we can help people manage their finances and personal administrative tasks with the help of a computer.  

With many courses and learning opportunities being available online, having the right equipment certainly moves us towards a more level playing field, and that’s what we are all about!