As part of Refugee Week 2020 Endalk, who is a volunteer and student at Learn for Life Enterprise, has shared his story of his journey to the UK and his life now in Sheffield. You can read it in full by clicking here.

This event is a part of #RefugeeWeek2020 and a celebration of the contributions of refugees to our communities in the UK and across the globe

LLM and MA Human Rights students, Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice, Mama Africa and Learn for Life Enterprise would like to invite you to an online conversation about exile: ‘IMAGINE’. As part of Refugee Week we are celebrating the contributions of refugees to our communities in the UK and across the globe. There will be the opportunity to ask questions and learn about ways you can help to welcome people seeking sanctuary.

Our guests are:

– Hayley Nelson and Learn for Life students – ‘Learn for Life Enterprise’

-Marina Schirone and Mama Africa children – ‘Mama Africa’

-Margriet Ruurs – the author of ‘Stepping Stones: A Refugee Family’s Journey’

To register go to Eventbrite here or directing to Zoom here.

At the beginning of the pandemic Boris Johnson promised that asylum seekers would get the support they deserved. This week the UK Home Office increased Asylum Support by 26p per day to help people seeking asylum through #Covid19. That makes a total of £5.66 per day to live on.

Learn for Life Enterprise has joined 220+ organisations in writing to Priti Patel to demand better. It is a moral and public health imperative that Asylum support rates are increased immediately. You can read the letter by clicking here.

You can sign a petition to support an increase in Asylum support by clicking here.

Sam has written a blog for the University of Sheffield about his experience volunteering at Learn for Life Enterprise.

Sam got involved with volunteering after seeing the role advertised on the Sheffield Volunteering website and being inspired by Learn for Life’s mission – supporting vulnerable and hard-to-reach members of the community, local residents, refugees, asylum seekers, BME communities and older people with the aim of promoting and maintaining cohesion and integration. 

In this blog piece, Sam emphasises how enriching volunteering can be in terms of professional development for students with personal or economic constraints that mean other opportunities aren’t always available. Thank you for your fantastic contribution to the local community Sam!

You can read the article here.

During June Sheffbricks are donating 10% of all their sales income to Learn for Life. You can purchase your lego needs by visiting their website here.

“It’s important that people become more aware and do more to help the disadvantaged in our communities. As a company selling accessories for minifigures there’s not a lot we can do but what we will do is donate 10% of all income during June from our website to Learn for Life Enterprise, a local organisation that does such great work for the black communities.” – Sheffbricks

We are pleased to announce we have been awarded funding from Electrical Safety First from their Electrical Fire Safety Fund 2020. We will deliver effective fire prevention measures aimed at tackling the causes of fire in homes that are started by electricity. We hope to contribute to a reduction in the number of electrically-related accidental fires and associated injuries in UK homes.

Electrical Safety First is the UK charity committed to reducing deaths, injuries and accidents caused by electricity. For more information, please visit: www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk

It has been a very humbling and heartwarming experience delivering the tablets. It’s great to see this project having such a positive impact. Here are some messages we have received:

“Thank you so much I appreciate it”

“Thank you very much am really appreciate for the tablet may God bless you🙏”

“we wanted to thank you for the tablet, thank you very much”

“Thank you so much for everything, I really appreciate every single thing you do for me.”

You can listen to Hayley being interviewed on Radio Sheffield about distributing the tablets and free data to our students which have been donated by The Good Things Foundation, FutureDotNow and BT Group here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p088w9m3  it’s at 3 hours 34 minutes in.

Following an inspection this week, Learn for Life Enterprise has re-achieved accreditation to the Matrix Standard, demonstrating the high quality Information Advice and Guidance services we provide to members of the Sheffield community.

The Matrix Standard is the international quality standard for organisations that deliver information, advice and/or guidance (IAG), either as their sole purpose or as part of their service offering.

Roger Chapman, Head of the Matrix Service for The Growth Company said:

“This is a fantastic achievement for Learn for Life Enterprise and I would like to congratulate the team on their success. We believe that at the heart of high-quality advice and support services are strong leadership, excellent service and a focus on continuous improvement, all underpinned by effective use of the resources available. The matrix Standard is designed to benchmark organisations against best practice in these areas. With their accreditation success, Learn for Life Enterprise is working to provide the best possible support to their clients.”

For more information about the matrix Standard please visit: http://www.matrixstandard.com/

The Matrix Standard is the international quality standard for organisations that deliver information, advice and/or guidance (IAG). Either as their sole purpose or as part of their service offering.

Any organisation which manages, administers and delivers an information, advice and/or guidance service to support individuals in their choice of career, learning, work or life goals can become accredited to the Matrix Standard. It does not matter whether the service or services are delivered face-to-face, through training, learning, remotely, or through a website.

Organisations that have benefited from working with the Standard include Training Providers, Universities, Further/Higher Education Colleges, Schools and Academies, Sole Traders, Next Step Providers, Voluntary and Community Organisations and Private Businesses.

The Matrix Standard is owned by the Department for Education and is managed by The Growth Company on their behalf.

Thank you to the Good Things Foundation, BT Group and FutureDotNow for donating brand new tablets with free data to Learn for Life. We will be delivering them to our students so they can get online and stay in touch during this challenging time. #learningfromhome#StaySafeStayHealthy
If you want to support the initiative to help get 1.9 million households online you can do so here: https://futuredotnow.uk/devicesdotnow