Christmas appeal - Give a gift that has the potential to change lives and bring families together!
We help refugees in Athens to be reunited with their families. We rely on donations to provide vital legal support. Please donate or spread the word
Donate today and spread the word
Christmas is traditionally a time when families come together. Across Europe today, thousands of refugee families are separated, after having fled their homes and undertaken a risky, often life-threatening, journey to reach a place of safety. In many cases, children haven’t seen their parents, siblings, aunts and uncles for years.
Since 2015, Greece has seen the highest number of arrivals of refugees of any European country. Many of them are hoping to join their families in other EU states. There is a legal route under European law that makes this possible, but in practice the system doesn’t work, as states across Europe increasingly seek to limit the number of refugees they allow in. In Greece, there is such a severe lack of legal advice that many refugees are not even aware of their basic rights, let alone able to access them.
At RLS we advocate on our clients’ behalf with the Greek authorities, gather all the evidence needed to present their cases, and ensure they understand the complex legal rules and procedures they are caught up in.
Over half of the applications for family reunion we’ve made have been successful. As many of the cases we take on are the most difficult and complex, this success rate is huge achievement. It is possible thanks to the expertise of our lawyers and the experience, persistence and dedication of our small team in Athens.
61% of the clients we have helped to prepare for their asylum interviews have been granted refugee status, significantly higher than the average recognition rate in Greece of 41%.
We need your help to be able to continue to provide this vital service. We have set ourselves an ambitious target to raise £30,000 by the end of the year. We know that with your help we can do this. Every penny you give will go directly to providing legal support to our clients in the clinic.
This Christmas, why not give a gift that has the potential to change lives and bring families together?
£20 pays for a refugee interpreter for an initial appointment
£30 pays for the clinic’s telephone bill for a month
£50 enables our Greek lawyer to attend an asylum interview with one of our vulnerable clients to ensure their rights are upheld
£100 enables a volunteer lawyer to assess evidence and draft representations for a family reunification case
£150 enables our Greek lawyer to write post-interview representations for a vulnerable client in addition to attending their asylum interview
£500 enables our lawyers to fully prepare a complex family reunification case
Please share our Christmas appeal with your friends, families, and communities to help us reach out to as many people as possible and grow the RLS family.
Donate today and spread the word
Need ideas?
Ask your employer to match your donation
Run a Christmas jumper day for RLS
Donate to RLS as your Secret Santa present
Invite your friends over for drinks and mince pies and ask for a donation
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter where we will be sharing more client stories, testimonials from our volunteer lawyers, and our hopes for the future over the next few weeks.
