Bread & Roses’ trustees annual report for the year ending 31 August 2021

Structure, objects and public benefit

Bread and Roses LDN Limited (working name: Bread & Roses) is a company limited by guarantee (registered company number 12138089) with charitable status (registered charity number 1162399).

The governing document is the Memorandum and Articles of Association, incorporated on 5 August 2019 and amended by special resolution registered at Companies House on 20 February 2021. The company became registered with the Charity Commission on 3 March 2021.

The objects of Bread & Roses, as stated in the governing document, are, for the public benefit:

1. To advance the education of and relieve financial hardship amongst women seeking asylum and women granted refugee status in the UK, including by the provision of advice and English language training and by the provision of floristry training. 

2. To promote social inclusion for the public benefit by preventing women seeking asylum and women granted refugee status in England and Wales from becoming socially excluded.

In setting objectives and planning activities, the trustees confirm that they have complied with their duty under Section 17 of the Charities Act 2011 to have due regard to the Charity Commission's guidance on public benefit.

Mission, background and activities

Mission

Bread & Roses’ mission is to support women from refugee backgrounds as they rebuild their lives in the UK. We do this by:

1. Delivering floristry training programmes supporting women from refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds to develop skills, knowledge and networks that will help them as they rebuild their lives in the UK;

2. Awarding grants to charities across the UK enabling them to deliver floristry training programmes for women in their local community. 

Why we are needed

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ statistics, as of mid-2021 there were 135,912 refugees, 83,489 pending asylum cases and 3,968  stateless persons in the UK. 

All those with refugee status, and some seeking asylum, have the lengthy process of rebuilding their lives in their future. Refugees and asylum seekers in the UK come from diverse backgrounds and have had varied life experiences, meaning the pathway to integration is different for each individual. But for nearly every person it involves navigating an unfamiliar system in order to learn a new language, settle within a new community and generate a livelihood. 

Women from refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds across the UK face particular barriers to rebuilding their lives:

1. Barriers to livelihood and social integration: The Home Office aims to process asylum applications within six months of a claim being made but, according to Home Office Immigration Statistics, almost half of all people claiming asylum currently wait over six months for a decision on their claim, with many waiting years. Whilst claiming asylum, a person is unable to work or access government-funded education at university or college, limiting their ability to improve their English, acquire new skills and make friends and social contacts.

2. Lack of employment experience: On virtually every global measure, women are more economically excluded than men: they are more likely to be engaged in low productivity activities, work more in informal employment, and transition more frequently between being in employment and out of the labour force (World Bank Group, 2019, “Little Data Book on Gender”). Many women from refugee backgrounds rebuilding their lives in the UK have therefore had restricted access to employment.

3. Sexual and gender-based violence: According to the UNHCR, refugees and internally displaced people - who do not enjoy the protection of their own governments - are among those most vulnerable to acts of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence. Women and children, who are often most vulnerable to human rights abuses, are also the ones who suffer most from sexual and gender-based violence. Some women rebuilding their lives in the UK are traumatised by the sexual and gender-based violence they have experienced in their home country, during their journey or after arriving here (APPG, 2017, “Refugees Welcome? The Experience of New Refugees in the UK”).

4. Gendered impact of detention: The detention of asylum seekers has a detrimental impact on their social, physical and psychological health (Filges T., Montgomery, E. and Kastrup, M., 2016, “The Impact of Detention on the Health of Asylum Seekers: A Systematic Review”). For many women who enter detention (in the year ending June 2019, 13,262 people who had at some point claimed asylum were detained) the experience compounds their previous trauma.

5. Gendered impact of UK systems: Systems for refugees and asylum seekers can create additional challenges for women; for example, benefits more commonly claimed by women take longer to process (on average twelve weeks for Child Benefit, compared to five weeks for Universal Credit). English classes often do not cater to those with childcare responsibilities and are taught in a mixed gender setting, both of which can be barriers to women attending. Research indicates that refugees with poor language skills are most at risk of exclusion and long-term dependency, and that higher language skills lead to more contact with other communities and improves refugee wellbeing (Collyer, M., Morrice, L., Tip, L., Brown, R., and Odermatt, E., “A Long Term Commitment: Integration of Resettled Refugees in the UK”, 2018).

6. In addition to the particular barriers facing women as they rebuild their lives, the lack of a national integration programme in the UK means the availability and quality of support for refugees and asylum-seekers varies across the country. According to the EU, there are over 150 programmes across the UK that are available to support refugees (European Website on Integration, 2020, “Governance of Migrant Integration in the UK”). Recent migration has seen the emergence of migrant communities in non-traditional destinations in the UK, such as rural areas and suburbs. A 2019 Home Office report noted that integration initiatives which link rural municipalities and civil society organisations to those in urban areas are therefore necessary in order to share best practice (Coley, J., Godin, M., Morrice, L., Phillimore, J. and Tah, C., 2019, “Integrating refugees”).

What we do

It is clear that holistic support to address these barriers is needed. Bread & Roses delivers the following benefits for refugee and asylum seeking women:

1. Improved language skills: English exercises are integrated into the floristry training curriculum, giving participants the opportunity to learn new vocabulary and practice their speaking skills in a safe space.

2. Greater wellbeing: Participants benefit from the therapeutic quality of working with flowers and learning a new skill.

3. Stronger communities: Training programmes provide participants with the opportunity to form social connections and friendships with other women living in the local area, from both refugee and non-refugee backgrounds.

4. Increased ability to access UK systems and services: Information sessions after each floristry workshop increase participants’ awareness of relevant UK systems and local services. Referrals to services can be made at the request of participants.

5. Awarding grants to charities across the UK to leverage Bread & Roses’ expertise: Grants are awarded to charities, equipping organisations with the tools and funding to deliver training programmes tailored to the needs of refugee and asylum seeking women in their local community.

Achievements and performance during 2020/21 

This report covers September 2020 to August 2021: Bread & Roses’ fourth year in operation as an organisation and six months of its first financial year as a charitable company. 

Prior to registering as a charitable company in March 2021, Bread & Roses operated as a social enterprise and was registered as a company limited by shares with a social mission embedded into its governing documents (Bread and Roses London Limited, registered company number 10381862). 

Due to delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the process of registering Bread & Roses as a charitable company (Bread and Roses LDN Limited) took 19 months: the company limited by guarantee (registered company number 12138089) was incorporated in August 2019 and the company was subsequently awarded charitable status (registered charity number 1193690) in March 2021, at which point the directors of Bread and Roses London began transferring the social enterprise’s funds and operations across to Bread and Roses LDN. 

Owing to an error when registering with the Charity Commission, the financial year for Bread and Roses LDN Limited was initially recorded as April to March, i.e. in line with the date of registration with the Charity Commission, rather than with the financial year registered with Companies House when the company limited by guarantee was incorporated (September - August). Once the trustees became aware of the error, the Charity Commission was notified and the financial year registered with the Charity Commission was changed to bring it into line with the financial year registered with Companies House (i.e. from April 2020 - March 2021 to September 2020 - August 2021). 

This report covers a six month period where Bread & Roses was still operating as a social enterprise, before charitable status was awarded in March 2021. The first six months of financial activity of this report are therefore minimal, with the charitable company becoming operational in May, upon receipt of the final instalment of opening funds received from the social enterprise. 

Delivery outputs

Between September 2020 and August 2021, we provided 76 hours of floristry training, English classes and signposting sessions to 20 women from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds living in London. By August 2021, 11 women had completed a nine-week training programme (in Autumn 2020 and Spring 2021), and a further nine had started our Autumn 2021 programme. 

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, enrollment in our Autumn 2020 programme was limited to three participants to ensure social distancing could be maintained and each participant could walk to our delivery centre, rather than take public transport (in line with public health guidance). During the programme, it became clear that the participants were struggling to use services which had moved online due to the pandemic because of their limited IT skills and lack of digital access (none owned a laptop). We responded by securing a donated laptop for each participant, providing basic training on how to use these and supporting participants to register for an IT training course for beginners.

The relaxation of the Covid-19 guidance in 2021 enabled us to return to our usual target of enrolling nine women to each programme. In addition to delivering the training programmes, in Spring 2021 we kicked off our alumni sessions, where graduates from previous programmes were invited to drop into monthly floristry workshops. These sessions enable participants to stay connected to friends made during their time on the programme. 

Impact

We measured the impact of our programme by asking participants to reflect upon the progress they felt they had made in five key areas at the beginning, middle and end of their training. In the final week of the programme: 

  • 8 out of 11 participants reported feeling either more, or much more, confident speaking English around new people and in new situations;

  • 9 out of 11 participants reported feeling either more, or much more, confident when meeting new people; 

  • 8 out of 11 participants reported feeling either more, or much more, confident about identifying and accessing support services in London; 

  • 9 out of 11 participants reported feeling much more confident about learning new skills;

  • All participants reported that the Bread & Roses workshops had given them a space to relax. 

What our participants say

Participants spoke to gal-dem magazine about their experience on the Bread & Roses programme for a piece published on World Refugee Day, June 2021:

  • Acacia explains that unlike other provisions for refugees, which can often reduce a person to their trauma, at Bread and Roses she feels appreciated for who she is outside of “what has happened to me”. It is a space, she says, for looking not only at “who we’ve been but at who we are going to be [and] cultivate…a sense of hope in the future, hope in ourselves and what we can become”.

  • Flora joined the programme a year ago and after the completion of the initial eight-week course, has returned on a monthly basis. Her attendance isn’t just for flowers, but also for the chance to learn from her peers, from chatting about the meaning of culturally-significant colours in their respective home-countries, to playing English language games. “I didn’t have any English”, Flora tells gal-dem of her arrival in the UK, but adds she’s become near-fluent in just one year. 

Organisational development

We made significant progress towards our goal of establishing a grant-giving arm of Bread & Roses to enable charities outside of London to apply for the tools and funding to deliver our programmes within their communities in FY 20/21. Funding received from the Network for Social Change enabled us to work with a service designer from April - July 2021 to conduct user research with potential partner organisations and refine our concept model for providing grants and resources. This project culminated in a set of recommendations for establishing the grant-giving arm of the charity that were presented to the board of trustees for their consideration. Following discussion on suitable partners, the board agreed to target two organisations to deliver pilot programmes with in FY21/22: the Baytree Centre in Brixton and Borderlands in Bristol. 

Fundraising 

In a tough funding environment created by the Covid-19 pandemic, we were grateful to receive grants from the Network for Social Change (£19,242) and Westfield East Bank Creative Futures Fund (£5,000) that supported our programme delivery and enabled us to continue developing our grant-giving model.  

Despite the challenges of Covid-19, we were successful with a number of commercial fundraising activities as outlined below: 

  • World Refugee Day campaign (June 2020): We raised £1,900 through the sale of 40 Bread & Roses bunches for World Refugee Day;

  • Lebanon fundraiser (Aug 2020): We provided the flowers for a fundraiser held by the Lebanese Embassy following the Beirut explosion which generated £500;

  • Kiehl’s activation (Oct 2020): Kiehl’s asked us to partner with them on a virtual event for their top 25 social media influencers. This involved us running a virtual floristry workshop for the influencers and sharing the story, mission and work of Bread & Roses. In addition to the £2,000 charge for running the workshop, Kiehl’s agreed to sponsor 25 of our participants, generating £10,000 of programme sponsorship funding;

  • Christmas wreath campaign (December 2020): We sold over 50 wreaths raising over £2,500. 

Future plans

In FY 21/22, our aim is to have established the grant-giving arm of the charity and have delivered two pilot programmes with partner organisations: the Baytree Centre, a Brixton-based social inclusion charity for women and girls, and Borderlands, a Bristol-based charity supporting refugees to help them from exclusion to belonging.