Today, 4 December, Women for Refugee Women says a huge thank you to our outgoing chair of trustees, Liz Page, and welcomes our new chair, Rachel Krys.

Liz Page has been the chair of our board of trustees for five years and steered the charity through a period of growth. She says:

“Being Chair of WRW has been a very special opportunity to work with women brought together by their commitment to ensuring that women seeking asylum in the UK are treated with justice and dignity. The energy and drive of staff, volunteers and most of all the refugee women is inspirational. As I handover to Rachel Krys I want to wish everyone associated with WRW the very best in continuing to create change.”

Women for Refugee Women is very grateful to Liz for all she has done for the charity. We have really valued her good judgement and generous support throughout all our successes and challenges over the last five years.

We are also glad to welcome Rachel Krys as our new chair. Rachel was co-director of the End Violence Against Women coalition for three years and has been chair of governors for a federation of primary schools in south London for seven years.  She is currently an equality and diversity consultant for the Bar Council.

Rachel says:

“It’s a real honour to be joining the board of Women for Refugee Women, an incredible organisation which has been campaigning with and empowering refugee women for many years. How our society responds to and supports women who are seeking refuge from persecution and violence says so much about who we are and aspire to be. I am excited to work with an organisation providing life-saving services, sharing the stories and lifting up the voices of women and holding the state to account.”

At the same time, Women for Refugee Women is glad to announce a new initiative, the Refugee Women Lead programme for asylum seeking and refugee women who are interested in joining charity boards. WRW, along with other charities, is very aware that we need to do more to ensure refugee women’s leadership. We are therefore putting resources and energy into a new programme to support refugee and asylum seeking women develop and consolidate the skills and confidence needed to become effective board members. This short course of four classes will be open to an initial six refugee and asylum seeking women in the first course, which will open May 2020. It will cover themes such as the duties of trustees, financial oversight for trustees, safeguarding, campaigning and strategic planning. All travel expenses and childcare expenses will be covered. For more information and expressions of interest, please email nahzley@refugeewomen.co.uk

Natasha Walter, director of Women for Refugee Women, says:

‘I would like to express my thanks to Liz for all she has done for Women for Refugee Women and all the support she has given the staff team. I’m looking forward to working with Rachel Krys, our new chair, over the coming years. It’s also exciting for me to be able to announce this new initiative aimed at developing the skills and leadership of refugee women in a programme that we hope will enable this charity and others to be led in the future by those with experience of the challenges that we are trying to tackle. The activities of Women for Refugee Women are so vital – more than ever we need to build solidarity and speak out with women who cross borders seeking safety. ’