Peaceful Borders - Anabaptist Mennonite Network

Seeking peace in the spaces in between

Accompanying Peacemakers

Helping new arrivals interpret their new surroundings and navigate life in the UK.

Building Capacity

Identifying people with good ideas and helping them build capacity for peaceful responses to forced displacement.

Campaigning for Peace

Advocating for those who have been displaced and whose rights are being abused, especially unaccompanied children.

Developing People & Practice

Integrating experience with reflection to enable better practice as we navigate a world on the move.

What we do

Practical Support
Peaceful Borders works to support new arrivals to the UK through helping refugee and migrant community leaders build their capacity and power to create peaceful communities and spaces through developing programmes of meaningful, refugee-led support. These include practical and emotional assistance and the development of social networks within and alongside refugee and migrant communities. Through this we strive to support communities to have a real voice in developing long-term solutions to the problems of isolation, displacement and lack of integration.
Advise and Empower
Having successfully supported community-building and peace-making in the Calais ‘Jungle’ during 2015-16, Peaceful Borders is now using this learning to support community leaders who emerged in the informal camps to use their skills and learning to assist new arrivals to the UK. We continue to accompany and advise grass-roots organisations as they respond to the largest movements of people across Europe since World War II.
Networks and Community
We accompany and support asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants in the UK to build communities of mutual support and solidarity to help new arrivals build successful new lives in the UK. We centre lived-experience in building refugee-led communities to work together for integration and to meaningfully improve their lives. We support asylum seekers, refugees and migrants to shape and take an active role in policy advocacy, campaigning and supporting mainstream organisations to use refugee learning and expertise in delivering services.

Our Aims

To use learning from refugee community leaders’ work in building communities in informal camps to build sustainable refugee communities for new arrivals in the UK

To ensure new arrivals to the UK are supported by small, refugee-led groups that understand their real needs and deliver meaningful programmes of support

To ensure refugees and volunteers responding to forced migration are provided with opportunities to reflect and learn from their experiences

To work with others to ensure refugee voices are at the heart of campaigns for safe and legal routes of migration to the UK and for fair and effective asylum systems

Supported Projects

Hopetowns

Hopetowns was the first of several weekly drop-in groups we have organised which aim to support the well-being and successful integration of asylum seekers and refugees into British society, by starting at the early stage of an individual’s asylum process. We support asylum-seekers in London and beyond by providing concrete solutions to everyday problems intertwined with a welcoming atmosphere and emotional support.

We have a track-record of preventing homelessness by assisting individuals with complicated housing cases and supporting family reunion applications for several refugee families in London.

The Witness Project

The Witness Project is a collaborative piece of work with Humans for Rights Network which responds to the large number of asylum seekers in the UK being accommodated in hotels and reception centres. Through listening and bearing witness to their circumstances, we have been able to raise awareness and obtain legal advocacy. We have focussed significantly on the unacceptable number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have been placed in adult accommodation and have supported Humans for Rights Network in getting many moved into more appropriate accommodation.

Calais Volunteers

We continue to support strategic medium- and long-term volunteers who work to support the most vulnerable of asylum-seekers and refugees who have found themselves in Calais. In partnership with Mennonite Mission Network and Maria Skobstova House we support a family who have moved to Calais to serve those on the margins and at the border.

European Baptist Federation

Our founders Juliet and Simon assist with dialogue and learning across their baptist networks. Juliet is currently chair of the European Baptist Federation’s Commission on Migration which seeks to help its community of 1 million baptists resource, network and reflect on issues of migration. Recent displacements in and around Ukraine and in Israel and Gaza add layers on to the ongoing displacements across Europe caused by global conflicts and climate change.

Team Members

Juliet

Emerging out of weekly visits to the Calais ‘jungle’ in 2015-16, Juliet co-founded Peaceful Borders to accompany refugee and volunteer peacemakers responding to this humanitarian crisis. She continues to coordinate the initiative part-time and actively campaigns for the rights of unaccompanied child refugees.

Simon

Co-founded Peaceful Borders in response to his weekly visits to Calais in 2015-16. Simon offers strategic support to our developments and continues to be on the management committee of Maria Skobstova House in Calais.

Samer

Samer founded Hopetowns to support the well-being and successful integration of refugees into British society. As a former community leader in the Calais ‘jungle’ who fled Sudan, he knows the importance of providing hope and friendship for vulnerable people.

Ali

Ali supports people who have recently arrived in Britain as they navigate the confusing systems of immigration, housing and work. As a former community leader in the Calais ‘jungle’ who fled Syria, he understands the challenges first hand.

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