The Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) is a dedicated, compassionate and ambitious team with a mission to give survivors of human trafficking, torture and exploitation the strength to move on.
Having worked closely with HBF to develop the TRIBE x HBF Hike for Freedom Programme, we are hugely excited to announce Helen Bamber Foundation as one of our new frontline project partners. We will be supporting their counter-trafficking work throughout 2021 and beyond, following a grant of £25,000 to support this.
Here, Sophie Parker (Fundraising and Communications Officer) introduces us to their work:
We are a team of expert lawyers, doctors, therapists and caseworkers who recognise that the most effective way of achieving long term recovery is in seeing the whole person. We take care of a survivor’s needs in each different area of their life, whether that’s physical or mental health, ensuring their legal protection and immigration status, avoiding housing precarity and destitution and providing spaces to learn, connect and build skills and confidence.
Each survivor will have different needs at different points in their journey, and we are with them every step of the way. We know that the path to recovery is not linear and progress may be followed by setbacks – this is why a long-term and holistic approach is key.
We first started working with the TRIBE Freedom Foundation in 2019, when we were running a pilot women’s hiking group project. TRIBE were the perfect partner for this and we ended up co-producing the Hike for Freedom Project with them. This saw a group of female survivors training together and culminated in the challenge of climbing the three highest peaks in the UK. Besides the physical challenge, the true power of this project was what it meant for this group of women to feel strong, confident and connected to others who understood them:
“Every single time I get out of the house and go to the hiking group, I come back home and say to myself: ‘now I am stronger, I can do more and more, and nothing can ever break me down’.”
The survivors we work with are some of the most inspiring people you could meet – our team has learned so much from working with them and we have become recognised as leaders in the fields of human trafficking, asylum and mental health. With this knowledge comes a responsibility to share our learnings with others: we work closely with service providers in the public and third sectors so that they are able to better support survivors of trafficking and torture and, crucially, ensure they are never again put in a position of being abused and exploited by others.
TRIBE’s mission and community demonstrate the huge impact we can have when we come together to make a difference and we are delighted to be continuing our journey as a partner. We believe in the power of collaboration and we look forward to seeing what we can achieve when we combine forces to give survivors the strength to fly.
Visit www.helenbamber.org to find out more about our work or follow us on Twitter @HelenBamber to keep up to date.
