Afghan Citizens' Resettlement

Proposed Haddenham Village Society initiative to support the scheme by resettling an Afghan family

Introduction

The Committee of the Haddenham Village Society has decided that, in principle, it would like to support the Afghan Citizens' Resettlement Scheme. Apart from the obvious desire to repay our obligations to the people of Afghanistan and play our part in helping to alleviate their suffering, the Committee feels that welcoming a refugee family would add further diversity to the village and would enable our community to become stronger.

Whilst it is impossible to predict job prospects for a specific family at this stage, there are a good number of jobs in Haddenham and we are optimistic about job prospects in general.

This decision is based on the highly successful Syrian family resettlement project carried out by a team of volunteers in Haddenham (with the support of the Village Society and Aylesbury Vale District Council). The government scheme through which this was delivered was the Vulnerable Persons' Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) which successfully resettled 20,319 refugees who fled the conflict in Syria.

Given the successful settlement of a Syrian family, who arrived in Haddenham in early 2020, and the experience gained from this, it seems very possible to support a similar programme for Afghanis.

The government has announced that the Afghan scheme will be modelled on the VPRS — See https://www.gov.uk/guidance/afghan-citizens-resettlement-scheme.

The way forward

Integral to the success of the Syrian family project was, and is, a dedicated team of people, with specific roles.

A new team for the Afghan project now needs to be assembled. The "Syrian" project team stands ready to give help and advice to the new team.

Would anyone willing to support this new initiative by giving their time and, possibly, their expertise, please contact Gerald Knight on afghanresettlement@gknight.co.uk