Get Involved - Citizens & Voices

Improve Your English

Are you looking to improve your English speaking skills in a social environment?

Are you looking to improve your English speaking skills in a social environment? We are offering free English language classes and activities to refugees and migrants. Come along to:

• Take part in weekly  events providing an opportunity to  develop and practice your English speaking skills.
• Join language learning activities where you can swap your skills (like cooking) in return for an informal English lesson.
• Take part in a wide range of language befriending activities and ESOL classes.

Helpful Downloads

If you require any further help, please contact us using the form on our contact page.

Migrant Media Lab: Training to tell your Story

Do you want to learn the skills to speak up in the media, share your experiences and tell stories that recognise the diversity and contribution that refugees and migrants bring to the West Midlands?

We offer group media training and one-one mentoring with volunteer media experts and journalists for migrants to gain the skills and confidence to tell their stories and build better understanding of migration.

Training topics will include: photography, basic film-making skills, writing articles, social media, effective messaging, interview techniques, and pitching stories to journalists and media outlets.

We will support migrants to tell their stories: about taking part in the project activities, their journey of integration into West Midlands communities and their life in the UK. We will support with producing your own videos, photos, articles, and social media and provide opportunities to speak out in the media.

If you require any further help, please contact us using the form on our contact page.

Become a Health Champion

Would you like to engage with your local community and volunteer as a health champion? Do you have three hours to spare a week?

We are offering the opportunity for 60 health champions to receive free training and accreditation.

Becoming a health champion will mean you will:

• Receive training from health experts
• Gain valuable experience for your CV
• Be able to provide your local community with health related information
• Represent your community and engage with health professionals
• Help improve health services for your community and across the West Midlands

Coventry University will provide certification for the health champions completing the course

If you require any further help, please contact us using the form on our contact page.

Know Your Rights – Helpful Advice & Materials

How is your knowledge of everyday law?

Do you understand your own situation in areas such as:

• Immigration: Am I lawfully here? What are the conditions of my stay? Can I bring family members here? What do I have to do next? Can I be British? How about my kids?
• Welfare Benefits: Am I entitled to benefits? What if someone in my family is sick or disabled? Can I work and get benefits?
• Employment: Can my employer really do that? Is that discrimination? I’ve lost my job what now? I’m pregnant or disabled and my employer is not doing the right thing.
• Housing: My landlord won’t fix the boiler. The house is damp. My neighbour is abusive to me. I’m being threatened with eviction. My housing benefit has stopped.
• Debt: I can’t pay all my bills. I have too many credit cards. I can’t pay the rent. I’m worried about my spending.
• Special needs: I have a child with special needs, how do I get them into the right school? How do I get an Education Health and Care plan? How do I get adaptations to the house?

We can offer a legal health check’ for you and the others who live in your household and tell you what you can do about your situation and who can help you. Legal casework will be offered if necessary.

For businesses and organisations:

People who understand their rights and are empowered to take care of themselves and their families will make for happier colleagues, which in turn benefits your business or organisation. Especially for people within migrant communities there can be extra hurdles to fully understanding their rights and entitlements. We can offer a ‘legal health check’ for people within your organisation and advise them what they can do about their situation and who can help them further if needed. Legal casework will be offered if necessary.

Inger is the project’s legal adviser at Central England Law Centre and will be happy to book you in for a Legal Health Check.

Please contact us using the form on our contact page.

Helpful Downloads

If you require any further help, please contact us using the form on our contact page.

Citizenship Advice For Young People

Are you a young person from a refugee or migrant background, even if you were born in the UK?

Do you know what your immigration status is?

Being born here doesn’t make you British, it all depends on your parents’ status. You may be able to become British or get Indefinite Leave.

If you don’t have the right immigration papers you cannot get student finance and paying for University yourself is pretty impossible, so the time to sort it out is now.

Not having the right papers can also stop you from working, renting a house, getting married and even having a driving licence or bank account.

We will come into schools and children’s centres to talk about citizenship and the need to have immigration papers. We will show you how to use a tool called Path to Papers. to check your status and we can put you in touch with Kids in Need of Defence who can help you make citizenship applications if that is what you need.

For schools and children’s centres

Young people without the right immigration papers cannot get student finance and are unlikely to be able to self-fund university, so the time to help them sort it out is now. Not having the right papers can also stop them from working, renting a house, getting married and even having a driving licence or bank account.

You may not know which of your children and young people this applies to as their birth certificate will not tell you what their status is. Why not invite us into your school to talk to children or parents so that we can make sure those who need help sorting their status can get this help early.

Inger is the project’s legal adviser at Central England Law Centre and will be happy to book you in for a Legal Health Check.

Please contact us using the form on our contact page.

If you require any further help, please contact us using the form on our contact page.