Our Members
Our members are community groups that have been set up and are run by asylum seekers and refugees. They are known as RCOs (Refugee-Led Community Organisations). They support communities across the North East region. The Board of Trustees has approved their application to join the Forum, and this has been ratified by the general membership at an Annual General Meeting (AGM). While RCOs do not need to be full members to participate in our activities, receive our support or contribute to the Collective Voice, becoming a full member means they can influence how the Forum is run and its priorities.
114 RCOs have joined us since 17 RCOs signed our Constitution in 2003. Several of our founder members are still actively involved in the Forum 20 years later and newly emerging groups join every year. Other groups are no longer active, reflecting the changing nature of needs over time as communities settle and grow in confidence or are able to return home. You will find details of currently active members in the members’ profiles.
Our members offer variety of support to their community, from peer support and inclusion or individual advocacy to full scale services. They range in scale from small, informal and unfunded groups to constituted, funded, registered charities. Their communities share lived experience or identity: they may live in the same locality, they may face a particular challenge, or they may gather around gender, ethnicity, nationality or language.
Our members contributed to research by the Refugee Council into the role and impact of RCOs. In its report ‘A bridge to life in the UK: Refugee-led community organisations and their role in integration’ the Refugee Councils’ CEO wrote:
“Put simply, RCOs are able to engage and support their members in ways that other organisations and agencies cannot. Language, cultural affinity, their cross-generational membership and the trust born of the shared experience of forced exile, enable RCOs to operate holistically and intuitively, and, in doing so, overcome impediments to independence that confound most mainstream organisations, whether in the statutory or the voluntary sectors.”
You can hear our members explain why they developed community action in the video The North East, Our new home
and videos celebrating the role of RCOs in the Tees Valley and RCOs in Tyne & Wear .