Comic Relief: Refugees and Asylum Seeking Women

Overview

Comic Relief receive many more applications than they are able to fund and usually only support work which fits our current priorities, so before you apply for funding, please read through all the Essential Information carefully.

Comic Relief accept applications from the voluntary and community sector throughout the UK including: constituted voluntary and community groups, charities, social enterprises, co-operatives, faith organisations, and community interest companies.

Comic Relief make grants in the programme areas outlined. You can make only one application to one programme at a time.

Comic Relief fund work in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - and are very keen to make sure that Comic Relief reach all parts of the UK, especially areas which often miss out, such as rural communities. Comic Relief usually make grants for between one and three years.

Comic Relief can give grants for running costs and capital costs. However, they give building costs a very low priority, and only fund these in exceptional circumstances. Comic Relief do not fund capital costs where they are part of a much larger appeal.

They usually make grants to cover project costs, but Comic Relief recognise that you may wish to include a contribution towards your organisational costs so that it reflects the true cost of running your project. This is sometimes known as full cost recovery.

Comic Relief can pay for all or some of your project costs, but they encourage you to get some of your funding from other sources if you can. There is no minimum or maximum grant in most of their programmes, but where there are limits, these are clearly stated in the programme guidelines. Their grants on average vary between £25,000 and £40,000 per year, and rarely exceed this upper limit.

Comic Relief are unlikely to make large grants to very small organisations, and they will not usually fund all the costs of an application made by charities with an annual income over £10 million. These charities will be expected to make a contribution themselves or secure other income towards the costs of the project.

If your work is regional, national or provides a model that could be widely replicated, they may be able to fund at a higher level. Please call Comic Relief to discuss this before you submit an application.

Comic Relief are especially keen to make sure that women get the help they need in making their claims for asylum, and also get access to emotional and practical services they need to help rebuild their lives. There are two strands to the open programme:

Direct support to women

They will fund support services with the aim of helping women cope better with the trauma they have experienced. This could include services such as counselling, group work or self help support. They will also fund services that help women access legal support, health care and housing for example.

Training

Comic Relief are also interested in supporting organisations to develop training for people working both in refugee and mainstream organisations to increase their skills, knowledge and practice in working with this vulnerable group. They hope that some of this work may be accredited and will have the potential to be adopted more widely by other organisations.

Outcomes

The organisations they fund will need to show how their work will help deliver one or more of the following outcomes:

• Refugee and asylum seeking women will feel more able to cope with the trauma they have experienced * Women will get the specialist support they need to make successful applications for asylum around rape, violence and torture
• Organisations will have increased knowledge of the needs of vulnerable refugee and asylum seeking women and be able to meet their needs more effectively

They welcome applications from a range of agencies who can reach this vulnerable group of women. They will give priority to organisations with a strong track record of working with this group or who can demonstrate a broad understanding of services that are needed.

They will generally fund work targeting women aged 18 and over, but may consider work with younger women so long as it does not replace services that would be considered a statutory responsibility.

How to Apply

Full guidelines and application forms are available from the comic relief website.