Get Involved

NewcomersRFSLPhoto: Mathilda Piehl

Newcomers is a non-profit organisation and there are many ways to get involved. Maybe you can help with interpretation, or maybe you have your own ideas about activities? Do you want to organize a support party? Make posters? Below we give examples of some ways in which you can help us and our members. And don't forget: You don't have to be an LGBTQ refugee to participate!

Become a volunteer!

Whoever you are we believe you have something to contribute and we’re always open to suggestions about how you could help us and our members.

  • You can help organize some of our recurring activities, meetings and events for and with our members.
  • Start new activities! Do you have access to an artist’s studio? Do you want to start a language café? Do you want to organize CV workshops and coach our members in their job seeking?
  • Are you gifted in graphic design and want to help us create posters and flyers?
  • If you are, or are studying to become, a music teacher you can involve our members in musical activities – or why not sports if you are an athlete. The possibilities are many!

The Counselling Group

Newcomers’ members are in need of both practical and psychological support. Counselors, psychologists, social workers and students in the final stages of similar studies are warmly welcome to organize activities about mental health and have counselling sessions with our members.

Become a Contact Person

We are always looking for people in the vicinity of Stockholm who can be contact persons to asylum seeking refugees. As a contact person to an LGBTQ refugee you support the person in the issues they might have. The situations and needs are different for our members, so as a contact person you might need to help the person in question with anything from finding accommodation to helping them find information about, and get access to, for example healthcare, the Migration Agency, schools and/or different authorities. Things that can be worth thinking about are:

  • A contact person can be the one that supports the individual member when they are in an ongoing asylum process or have had their application refused.
  • Many members need support and help with practical things as it’s not always easy to navigate in society when you’re newly arrived in Sweden. Much of the information from healthcare, the Migration Agency and other institutions/authorities can be difficult to access and hard to find for a newly arrived refugee.
  • The accommodation situation for asylum seekers and undocumented LGBTQ people is often difficult. Sometimes they don’t feel safe at the asylum accommodation. That can be because they feel that they don’t receive support from the staff or that they feel that the environment is unsafe for LGBTQ people.
  • Contact persons can raise funds for basic needs such as food and a bus pass.
  • Different members have different needs. Many tasks are practical, but as a contact person you are also there as a sounding board and as a person that the member can consult or just talk to.
  • It’s a big advantage if you speak one or more languages apart from English and Swedish, as our members’ language skills differ from person to person. Spanish, Farsi, French, Russian, Swahili – you name it!

Our members are often in emotionally vulnerable and exposed situations. Thus it’s important that you as a contact person can make time and take responsibility for your contact person. Moreover it’s important to be clear about how much time you have to help and support so that you both are clear about that.

 

Thank you for taking an interest!

Contact Newcomers

Telephone: +4673-509 17 27
E-mail: newcomers@rfsl.se