Home - Lewisham Borough of Sanctuary

Making Lewisham a Borough of Sanctuary

Our mission

Everyone deserves a safe place to live, where they can thrive, build the life they want and get help when they need. But the government is creating a hostile environment for many people living in our communities, by pursuing policies that divide and exclude people with migrant and refugee backgrounds.

Make Lewisham a safe place for all by joining the Lewisham Borough of Sanctuary movement!

The Borough of Sanctuary movement is part of the national City of Sanctuary movement, which aims to create a network of towns and cities throughout the UK that are proud to be places of safety and inclusion for people seeking sanctuary.

The Lewisham Migration Forum

We coordinate our efforts to become a Borough of Sanctuary through the Lewisham Migration Forum (LMF) which is chaired by Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network.

Our aims for the Borough of Sanctuary are to:

Challenge and campaign for migrant rights and against the ‘hostile environment‘
Celebrate the contribution refugee, asylum seeker and migrant communities bring to the borough of Lewisham
Raise awareness about some of the issues these communities face
Facilitate training for local businesses and organisations to ensure they can offer a service which is welcoming to all migrants
Be inclusive throughout the process by listening and engaging with people with lived experience, community organisations, statutory services, faith groups, businesses and much more.

We want to make Lewisham a borough where:

Refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are treated with respect, dignity and equality
A fair, humane and effective process is in place to support migrant communities
An empathetic, people centred approach is in place
Co-production and collaborative processes are valued, to engage the wider community and migrant communities
The barriers to integration and interaction within the community are removed.