South Wiltshire charity supporting Afghan refugee families transition
It follows the success with aiding Ukrainian refugees
Last updated 3rd Mar 2025
A South Wiltshire charity has told us how it's helping refugee families from Afghanistan transition to life in Britain.
Muse CIO has created a hub for Afghan families in Amesbury, where they're being taught English and IT skills, access advice and information and to socialise.
Many of the families have arrived in the UK via Pakistan, after leaving their home country when the Taliban retook control in 2021.
UK project manager Jane Ebel told us they're trying to compliment the work of the MOD and Wiltshire Council, who have facilitated the families move to South Wiltshire.
She said: "Several of us signed up to be volunteers with Wiltshire Council to support individual families.
"But we quickly realised that actually they it would be probably helpful for everyone if they came out in groups to a venue and had the same offer of English language, social gathering and IT sessions. We've been doing that for a year now."
But it's not been without it's challenges, with a wide-range of English speaking and literacy skills.
Jane said most of the children and teenagers speak good English, or are learning quickly, while the majority of the men are also able to speak English. But Jane told us many of the older women lack literacy skills and speak almost no English.
"There is a real hunger to learn," she said, adding: "If they could, they would do English every day. They have that much of A desire to learn and they also want to work."
Many of the young children are attending school in South Wiltshire, with Jane praising the work they're doing to help the children settle in.
But she's calling for the wider community to be open to the families staying in South Wiltshire, saying it's not widely understood how and why the families have arrived.
"There has been some tension" she said, "we could do with a lot more conversation about the families coming in that there should be a little bit more openness about who they are and why they're here and how long they're going to stay."
That, in Jane's view, needs to come from authority organisations, but insisted they're trying to build the community with events in the Amesbury area.
These events include creative arts projects, pop-up Kitchen's selling Afghan dishes and sewing adaptive clothing for people who've lost limbs in areas of conflict.