Double your impact — until 12pm on 30th June!
Every donation made to us through this link will be doubled until we reach our £10,000 goal. This is a match funding opportunity to support grassroots organisations like RSG; smaller, community-based charities that are often overshadowed by larger organisations. Run through the Big Give platform, watch their quick intro video by clicking here.
Your donation will directly support refugees through legal support and our drop-in centres. These sessions help refugees build support networks, integrate into the community, improve their English and receive practical help.
RSG has supported refugees for over 30 years — people like Natalia.
Read her story below and consider making a donation today. With match funding available for a limited time, your support will go twice as far.
Home is Where You Feel Safe, written by Natalia T.
I remember the day my daughter and I left Kyiv.
It was a grim morning that reeked of smoke and hopeless despair—fear and panic that ended in flight. We grabbed our backpacks without thinking of what came next. We just ran—through empty streets echoing with gunfire—toward the train station, not even sure if it was still operating.
The station was a sea of people. Mothers with infants, elderly folks, dogs, cats in carriers. Everyone was scrambling for any train heading west. We managed to squeeze into a carriage. Eighteen hours on our feet, holding strangers’ children because the floor was freezing and letting them sit on the metal would have been too cruel. We had only one half-liter bottle of water, shared between three adults and two kids for the entire journey. The lights in the carriage were off—phones were forbidden, to avoid revealing our location.
When we reached the UK, we didn’t just find safety—we were met with kindness from genuine, warm-hearted people. A British family took us in and became more than just hosts. They taught us how to live again—how to use public transport, book doctor’s appointments, navigate the local area. They accompanied us to meetings, helped with paperwork, and held us up when despair threatened to pull us under. After six months, we were able to stand on our own feet—renting our own place and finding work.
But home isn’t just four walls. It’s the feeling of safety.
In October 2022, we returned to Kyiv for a few days to retrieve documents and see what remained of our home. We took a 16-hour bus ride through wasteland. Cities once full of life now looked like movie sets for the apocalypse—the hollowed-out shells of burned houses, the skeletons of fire-scorched trees. But the worst were the cars, riddled with bullet holes. They screamed of people who had tried to flee.
As we neared our old neighborhood, the news broke: a Russian missile had struck the playground across the street. All the windows were blown out, the roof torn apart by shrapnel. That was the final straw. We realized—there was nothing to return to.
Now, Britain is our life. We’re grateful for the chance, for the safety, for the support. But the future is uncertain. We’re currently waiting for our visas to be extended for another 18 months—but what then? We’re no longer just refugees; we’ve become part of this society. We work, pay taxes and are rebuilding our lives. We want to stay—to contribute to the country that sheltered us.
My brothers and my daughter’s father stayed behind. They refused to leave their homes and now live in constant stress and uncertainty. We stay in touch online, and they are relieved that my daughter and I are safe, but the guilt of leaving them weighs heavily on me.
The war isn’t over. Ukraine is fighting and it won’t surrender. But victory takes time. And while our country stands on the front lines of the fight for freedom, we ask Britain to let us stay. We’re asking not for convenience, but because we have no other home.
We are grateful to the UK for standing with us in this struggle. Your support is not just a lifeline—it is a beacon of hope in our darkest hours.
