The year 2016 saw an unprecedented number of people fled war and conflict whilst the media created fear of immigrants draining public resources and hate crimes were on the rise. Repelled by the situation, the members of the Anna Lindh Foundation UK-network voted to produce work that would enable organisations across the ALF UK Network to share a common bond, and agree on some guiding principles on working with refugees, as well as producing a statement on the issue, supporting those fighting to live in new countries.

Among the first activities were the production of an electronic toolkit, which has been shared across the UK among members of the Anna Lindh Foundation’s well as across other like-minded organizations in the UK. The production of included contributions from 20 member organizations with some 25 individuals giving time to workshops, discussions, presentations and talks to establish the Principles and subsequent further tools for dissemination.

During the production of the toolkit, some challenges were noted. For example, participants expressed their fear over the pending Brexit negotiations, which will entail the loss of access to EU funding, The recommendation for this activity is its wider distribution to other organizations and networks for use, and working together to look at overcoming the looming exit from the European Union and the impact on our work with Refugees and other communities, as a result, moving further away from a sense of connectedness to our EU partners. The results included the production of an electronic toolkit.