LILLE WELCOME CENTRE

The Need

Asylum seekers want to integrate. They have many questions about their future and few places to which they can turn to try and find answers. Local church members want to serve others and offer a welcome to strangers. Church communities want to fulfill their mission to love God and the stranger. The Lille welcome centre brings these things together.

The Strategy

We rent a space in a church building near Porte des Postes, one of the main transport hubs in Lille. We plan activities and address integration needs that volunteers and asylum seekers themselves identify. We offer visitors who drop in a warm welcome and we mobilize Christians and others in the community to join with us in welcoming and assisting our displaced friends.

Location Served

• Lille, France

The Goal

Our overall aim is to encourage relationships of trust and respect between our displaced friends and the local community. We want to provide a needed oasis for recovery from some of the stress and hardship of their long journey.

The financial goal: We need to raise $9600 annually to cover the costs of rent, operations and programs.

The Opportunity

You are invited to donate to the Refugee Centre Project - France. By doing so, you will show your solidarity with refugees and churches in Lille and help our friends recover from displacement and begin to rebuild their lives.

We also need teammates to assist with various creative and practical programming needs that are well-suited to both short-term teams as well as long-term missionaries. Interested in learning more? Click the button below.

Progress

Since March 2020, the refugee centre has worked alongside of volunteers to offer a variety of activities and programs.

The outbreak of the Corona virus has caused weeks of confinement and closures. We have carefully followed the sanitary rules and offered a reduced program including: language and culture classes, trauma healing groups, phone repairs, and prayer times.

Most of the volunteers have been asylum seekers themselves and together we regularly provide emergency relief and care outside the centre to groups of asylum seekers living in harsh circumstances.