An education session at a Meeting House. Photo: Courtesy Herts Welcomes Refugees.
Widespread concern: Ginny Baumann shares the results of a QARN survey
‘All people should have a place to live in safety.’
In 2025, the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) decided to carry out a survey among Local Meetings in Britain to get a clearer picture of what Meetings and individual Friends are doing in this area. We wanted to do this so we could give better mutual support and so we could raise a stronger voice with policymakers at this critical time.
The survey results have been truly heartening, and when we asked some of the respondents for photos, the images that came back strongly conveyed the sense of peace and unity that we’re finding in this work, even though the cruelty we witness is so sharp and relentless.
The survey report will be published at the end of March and made available through our website (www.qarn.org). Results were shared through QARN’s Yearly Meeting Special Interest Group on 25 March (along with information about the latest government attacks on refugee rights).
The survey aimed to capture high-level information about activities, including short-term, small initiatives and longer-term ambitious projects. The questions also provided space for Friends to describe their activities, including how they work with other local bodies. QARN received responses from 138 Local Meetings, with a good geographic spread, enabling us to see trends and patterns in Quaker activities.
Our key findings included that over a quarter of respondent Meetings are undertaking five or more different types of activities on asylum, migration and refugee issues. More than three-quarters of respondent Meetings said that there was someone in their Local Meeting who is very involved. In describing their activities, respondents typically emphasised collaboration with other local bodies with shared concerns.
Thirty of the respondent Meetings said they had signed up as Sanctuary Meetings in 2017, and these Meetings were found to be undertaking a higher number of activities than those who had not signed up. Asked whether being part of the Sanctuary Meetings initiative made a difference in their activities, seventy per cent of these Meetings gave specific examples of what they had been doing as a result.
Almost half of the respondent Meetings had done at least one of the types of awareness-raising activities in the past two years, including holding an internal learning discussion or joining in an event for Refugee Week, or helping to organise an event on the issues with another organisation. Most of these had done more than one type of awareness-raising activity.
Quaker work with refugees tends to be very practical. The questionnaire had questions about seven different types of direct or financial support to refugees, migrants and people seeking asylum:
- fifty-five per cent of the respondent Meetings have a close supportive relationship with a local charity, with nearly all of those Meetings providing financial support
- seventy per cent of Meetings have individuals who volunteer with organisations providing services
- Meeting house premises are well-used for providing spaces for refugee organisations at low cost or free (twenty-nine per cent of respondent Meetings). Several rural Meetings have found a good connection with refugee issues through hosting day trips (often in beautiful surroundings) for people staying in appalling conditions in nearby urban areas
- Meetings are also providing meals or cooking facilities (twenty-two Meetings), providing English as a Second Language or other learning/therapeutic activities (fifteen) or housing refugees as a Meeting (eleven)
- forty-eight Meetings said that individual Friends are providing accommodation or lodgings.
Drawing on this practical involvement, thirty Meetings in the sample have been involved in pressure-building or protest activities. These Meetings were mostly writing to their MP or other politicians, and nine had joined in counter-protests in support of people staying in hotels who are threatened by far right groups. A few Meetings expressed the challenge of speaking out and of providing activities with refugees within a context of hostility towards people seeking asylum.
‘There is a lot we can learn from each other about what is possible.’
As we review the survey results, it is clear that, across Quakers in Britain, there is a widespread and sustained concern about the violation of human rights facing people seeking sanctuary. Friends are directly involved in steady week-by-week practical efforts, usually alongside other groups, and for many Meetings this personal connection leads us to call for policies that offer welcome and integration rather than rejection and exclusion.
Based on the wide-ranging examples given by respondents, there is a lot we can learn from each other about what is possible – as well as what is life-giving for our Meeting communities:
- the Sanctuary Meetings approach clearly added value and was found to nurture Meetings’ commitments, so it would be important to consider once again bringing that into visibility, perhaps using some central resources for mutual support
- QARN should continue working with staff of Quakers in Britain to provide briefings to Friends as we seek better policies
- respondents requested suggestions for discussion meetings within Local Meetings. Such resources might help Meetings and individuals to discern what could be an appropriate response or next step
- we hope that efforts to enhance our collective witness on refugee, migrant and asylum rights could build on further discernment by Yearly Meeting and be carried out in collaboration with local development workers and public affairs and media staff.
While we try to tackle the onslaught of complicated and divisive policies, there seems to be a simple thread running through Friends’ involvement and driving our concern: in our Quaker faith and in our experience, we find that the Spirit is alive in everyone and so we believe that all people should have a place to live in safety, protected from destitution and free to make their contribution and use their gifts.
Ginny is from the QARN Steering Group.
