Hackney Refugee Forum is an umbrella organisation which was founded in April 2000 as a need of the refugee organisation in the London Borough of Hackney and it became a constitute body on the 19th May 2005. There are 11 different refugee organisations in the Management Committee of the HRF and works with over 40 different RAS community organisations in Hackney. We also have over 60 contacts of service providers on our database.

The Hackney Refugee Forum exists to strengthen refugee communities and represent their joint interests in the borough of Hackney. As a network of organisation, the Hackney Refugee Forum seeks to influence statutory and voluntary organisations providing service and advocating for refugees in the borough. The Hackney Refugee forum believes that in providing opportunities for exchanging, sharing and learning from the experiences of refugees it can raise awareness of the issues facing them and enable and empower refugees it can raise awareness of the issues facing them and enable and empower refugees to access their rights, develop their well-being and participate as fully as possible in all aspects of community life.

HRF has meetings every 6 weeks with all organisations and individuals who work with refugees in Hackney and it brings service providers and refugee organisations for them to exchange information from the first hand and help to organise joint event for their clients.

This Migration Impact Fund programme in Hackney is aiming to create and support a journey for our diverse migrant communities from engagement within communities and schools, with individuals and families, through to targeted ESOL training aligned with vocational programmes. Alongside this it will strengthening our evidence base of Migrants needs within Hackney, and developing a strategy which Team Hackney partners can discuss and develop appropriate cross agency actions.

Hackney Refugee Forum has already started working on its input into the Hackney migrant strategy. We will be looking to organise meetings with the representatives of the refugee and migrant organisations alongside refugee and migrant individuals. We will make sure that the strategy is as inclusive as possible. We will make sure that the needs of the refugee and migrants in Hackney are clearly identified with action points on how to meet these needs.

For more information please contact Ali Riza Aksoy through e-mail on: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it