NACCOM 2019Happy To Host Conference

Saturday 13th July 2019, Amnesty International, London

We warmly welcome you to NACCOM’s annual Hosting Conference, a day of inspiring stories, insightful perspectives and interactive workshops celebrating and championing open homes for those seeking asylum, refugees and other migrants facing homelessness across the UK.

10.00 – 10.15 Welcome Introduction of No Stranger Place Exhibition

Poems by Hannah Sabatia

Hazel Williams, National Director, NACCOM

See overleaf for biographies

10.15 – 11.00 Panel discussion: Home Truths What’s hosting really like? Hosts and guests share their experiences of hosting.

Hosted by Nico Ndlovu with:Asadullah KohistanJane Henson (Host Nottingham)Betty Johnson Carol Munro (Housing Justice)

11.00 – 12.20 Workshops:

1. Recruiting hosts and using social media

2. Key issues in hosting

3. The global refugee situation

4. Self-care, vicarious trauma and boundaries

See workshop sheet for details

NACCOM,Refugees at Home, IMiX and Depaul UK

Dave Smith (NACCOM)

Matthew Saltmarsh (UNHCR)

Mirjam Thullesen (UKCP registered Psychotherapist)

12.20 – 13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 14.00 No Direction Home – Stand Up Comedians:

www.facebook.com/nodirectionhomeuk

Abdulwahab Tahhan Majid Adin Usman Khalid

14.00 – 14.45 Talk: ‘Speaking out for Change from your Own Doorstep’

Zrinka Bralo (Migrants Organise)

14.45 – 16.05 Workshops:1. How Refugees at Home works

2. Key issues in hosting

3. Different models of community hosting

4. Self-care, Vicarious Trauma and boundaries

See workshop sheet for detailsLauren Scott and SiobhanDe Jonghe (Refugees at Home)

Dave Smith (NACCOM)

Rachael Bee (NACCOM and BHN) and Penny Gray (BHN)

Mirjam Thullesen (UKCP registered Psychotherapist)

#HappyToHost2019

16.05 – 16.15 Close: calls to action from the day/group photo

S peakers

Hannah Sabatia is originally from Kenya and has been in the UK for over 10 years. She has coordinated the hosting scheme (Share Tawe) in Swansea for the last two years and currently manages volunteers for Swansea City of Sanctuary’s ‘A Better Welcome’ Project. At Happy To Host she shares poems from one of the refugee womens groups she is involved with, some of which are published in the book- ‘My Heart Loves In My Language’. There are a limited number of books available at the event, otherwise to request a book please email Tom at: T.cheesman@swansea.ac.uk.

Nico Ndlovu is a Zimbabwean national and an asylum seeker living in Glasgow. Nico is involved in a few projects in Scotland, including performing stand-up comedy and compering for shows in Glasgow and Edinburgh and volunteering with several refugee charities including with Refugee Survival Trust and NACCOM as a community reporter, and as a trustee of Glasgow Night Shelter.

Jane Henson is Chair of Host Nottingham, a hosting scheme in Nottinghamshire, and has been working with asylum seekers and refugees for the last decade. She set up Host Nottingham in 2011 and since then has personally opened her home to 200+ asylum seekers. Her other great interest is Israel and Palestine.

Asadullah Kodistan is a refugee from Afghanistan living in Swansea. He volunteers with a few projects, including Cancer Research and EYST, working with other asylum seekers and refugees, and he is also volunteering with NACCOM as a community reporter. He became involved with Share Tawe, a hosting scheme for people who are destitute in the asylum process, in Swansea last year and stayed with a host family for seven months.

Carol Munro is a retired headteacher living in London who spent 18 years teaching/ running a school in Morocco and many years as head of a school in London. In 1999 she established a charity, Salusbury WORLD, to support refugee children and their families, mainly those living within North West London. Since her children have grown up and left home, Carol and her partner have begun hosting by volunteering with Housing Justice.

Rachael Mantel is a mum, People Director and accidental activist. She is currently a trustee of Refugees at Home, supporting the media, social media channels and impact reporting. She is also part of the admin team for the People to People Solidarity social media pages, including Calais People to People Solidarity and UK Refugee Welcome. Her hobbies are largely the same as her 5-year old’s- dinosaurs, Lego and enjoying the food cooked by her guests, hosted through Refugees at Home. Siobhan De Jonghe is a member of the core placement team for Refugees At Home, arranging placements with volunteer hosts and guests in need of accommodation. Siobhan's background is in teaching in partnership with the charity Teach First who have a vision to reduce social inequality through education. Previously, Siobhan was community Coordinator with the charity Oasis and worked to reduce social isolation and food poverty together with the charity Food Cycle.

Lauren Scott is the Senior Manager at Refugees At Home. Lauren oversees service delivery and works closely with the Board of Trustees to develop future initiatives and strategy. Lauren is also responsible for reviewing operations and provides overall leadership for the Placement team.

#HappyToHost2019

Lauren's background is in the charity sector, working both in frontline and management roles for charities that supported families in crisis and people who find themselves homeless across London.

Zrinka Bralo is CEO of the award-winning grass roots organisation Migrants Organise and a refugee from Sarajevo, where she was a journalist during the 90s. A leading campaigner and organiser against hostile environment immigration policies, Zrinka founded the ‘Women on the Move Awards’ and has played a key role in, amongst other things, ending immigration detention of children and lobbying for the Community Sponsorship Visa Scheme in 2016.

No Direction Home - Counterpoints Arts, Camden People’s Theatre and award-winning comedian Tom Parry have been running the No Direction Home stand-up programme since 2018. It's a unique course for aspiring comics from refugee and migrant backgrounds with monthly London gigs featuring guest headliners including Nish Kumar and Lou Sanders.

Mirjam Thullesen is a trained psychologist and practising psychotherapist. As well as working within the NHS, she has worked for a number of years in the charitable sector with refugees and survivors of trafficking and torture whilst at the Poppy Project, British Refugee Council and Freedom from Torture. She has recently finished a Doctorate in Psychology and Psychotherapy looking specifically at self-care for practitioners working with refugees.

Dave Smith is a Network Development Worker for NACCOM, supporting members with capacity-building, partnership working and good practice. Dave lives in the North West and is a trustee of the Boaz Trust, a charity he founded in 2004, which runs a hosting scheme, manages 17 shared houses and coordinates a winter night shelter through local churches. Dave also oversees the Refugee Resource Centre for Churches and is the author of two books, the 'Book of Boaz' and 'Refugee Stories'.

Paul Catterall is a Network Development Worker for NACCOM, supporting members with capacity-building, partnership working and good practice. Paul lives in Middlesbrough with his family, and before joining the NACCOM staff team was well known to NACCOM, as a founding member of the Board of Trustees and CEO of Open Door North East, a charity providing accommodation and a range of services including hosting to asylum seekers and refugees across the Tees Valley.

Carol Jennions is the Nightstop Network Officer for Depaul UK. She works closely with Nightstop services across the North of England and Wales, sharing good practice and providing advice and support on emergency hosting to a network of 30 Nightstops and over 650 hosting households across the country. Carol has worked in homelessness for the past ten years, in both the public and voluntary sectors.

Katherine Maxwell-Rose works for IMiX and is a communications specialist with a wide variety of experience in the arts and charity sectors. She firmly believes in the power of stories to bring about social, political and cultural change and previously held the role of online editor at Tearfund. A contributor to BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought on the early morning breakfast show, Katherine loves writing, travelling, singing and occasional wild swimming. Find her on Twitter @KatherineMaxi.

Matthew Saltmarsh is London-based Senior External Relations Officer at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. He previously worked for the Agency in Geneva, covering the Middle East, including the Syria and Iraq situations. Prior to that he was based in Lebanon with UNHCR. Before joining the UN, he worked independently as a consultant on external relations. Matthew has also worked as a journalist, and spent eight years, latterly as a Staff Correspondent, at the International Herald Tribune/NYT in Paris.

#HappyToHost2019

Rachael Bee is a Trustee for NACCOM, having been involved with the network since 2010 and a member of the Steering Group since 2012. In 2009 she helped set up Bristol Hospitality Network with Dr Naomi Milner and became the first paid Manager in 2014. She has also run a small social enterprise, Refugee Welcome Homes , since 2013.

Workshop details

1. Recruiting Hosts and Using Social Media (morning) - How do you spread the word about your hosting scheme? How can you utilise different media channels to generate a culture of hospitality in your local area? With insight from Paul Catterall, Network Development Worker for NACCOM and former CEO of Open Door North East, plus representatives from Depaul UK, IMiX and Refugees at Home, this session will cover all these questions and more, looking at engaging with social media, supportive news outlets and running events to spark interest, recruit hosts, and ultimately reduce destitution.

2. Key Issues in Hosting (morning and afternoon) - What do you need to know before you open up your home? What makes for a positive and rewarding placement for both guest and host? These are the key questions that this workshop will address, building on insights from NACCOM’s Hosting Toolkit. This workshop is for prospective and current hosts, alongside those who want to improve their scheme or start a new one. Facilitated by Dave Smith, founder of the Boaz Trust and Network Development.

3. The Global Refugee Situation (morning) - With ever more people being forcibly displaced, and European countries only welcoming a small fraction of those in need, this workshop by Matthew Saltmarsh from UNHCR will explore where the world’s refugees are located, where they are moving to and future predictions for how the global refugee situation might evolve.

4. Self-care, Vicarious Trauma and Boundaries (morning and afternoon) - When welcoming people into your home it’s important to ensure you look after yourself and set clear boundaries so you don’t burn out, can continue to provide a spare room and enjoy life. This workshop, led by Mirjam Thullesen (UKCP registered Psychotherapist), will explore issues around boundaries – setting them and why they are important, what vicarious trauma is, and tips on how to look after yourself.

5. How Refugees at Home works (afternoon) – Refugees at Home started in 2016 and has since become one of the UK’s largest hosting schemes, placing an average of 145 people in 135 households across the UK every night. In this workshop, Lauren Scott and Siobhan De Jonghe will discuss how the model works, including how they work with other schemes to both recruit hosts locally and provide accommodation for people in need. The session is primarily geared towards hosting coordinators from other schemes across the UK, to inspire innovative approaches to meeting need and generate new ways of working together.

6. Different modes of Community Hosting (afternoon) - There are many different ways that homes can be opened up for hosting, and this workshop will explore some of the different models of community hosting. Rachel Bee and Penny Gray from Bristol Hospitality Network, will share their

#HappyToHost2019

experiences of running an 11-bedroom house for people who have been refused asylum, in which there are live in hosts to manage the house. They will also share their experiences of coming together as a community to jointly host with their neighbours. Sharing some of the key things they have learned over the years.

#HappyToHost2019