One Community Link has set out a five-year plan to tackle some of the barriers facing refugees, people seeking asylum, migrants and Global Majority communities across Tees Valley.
The Stockton-based charity says its priorities will include reducing homelessness, creating stronger routes into skills and fair employment, improving digital inclusion, increasing opportunities for young people and continuing its work against racism and discrimination.
The plan comes as One Community Link approaches ten years since becoming a charity in 2016. What began with English classes, hot meals and a place for people to meet without judgement has grown into an organisation that says it now welcomes more than 250 people each week from Stockton, Thornaby, Middlesbrough and Hartlepool.
Housing security after refugee status
One of the most immediate issues identified in the is the risk of homelessness faced by people when they gain refugee status and have to move on from asylum accommodation.
One Community Link says it plans to purchase and manage mobile housing as a practical route towards greater housing security for people at risk of becoming homeless.
The charity also wants to strengthen the journey from learning into work. Its notes that many people arriving in the UK already have qualifications, professional experience and useful skills, but can struggle to use them because of barriers around language, recognition, discrimination and access to opportunity.
Its employment work will therefore focus on clearer routes from English and other learning into further training, fair paid work and progression.
Digital inclusion and racial justice
Digital inclusion is another major strand of the five-year plan. Rather than focusing only on access to devices, OCL says it wants to build the confidence and practical skills people need to use digital systems independently for work, housing, health services and everyday life.
The charity also plans to build on its racial justice work. Around 7,500 people have taken part in its anti-racism and decolonial education to date, according to the press release. The next phase will look at how that learning can influence professional practice, organisational decisions and the systems that shape people’s opportunities.
Young people shaping what comes next
Young people are also expected to play an active role in the next phase of the charity’s work. One Community Link wants to expand youth-led built around young people’s own ideas and leadership, alongside opportunities linked to careers, , public speaking, enterprise and wider connections across Tees Valley.
Founder and CEO Euphrasia Makaure helped establish the organisation after experiencing racism, discrimination and isolation herself, and after meeting other people in the North East whose qualifications, accents and names had become barriers to opportunity.
She said: “One Community Link was born out of the struggles people were facing — isolation, racism and discrimination. I dreamt of a safe space where we could come together, share our experiences and turn pain into strength and struggle into purpose. That is where One Community Link began.”
Looking ahead, she said the organisation is calling on partners, volunteers, trustees, businesses and to help shape the next stage of its work.
“We have learnt that when people come together around an idea, we achieve more,” she said. “Help us make this a welcoming place for people who are new to our communities and build what comes next together.”
Ten years of local support
Since 2016, One Community Link says it has supported more than 12,500 people from migrant, refugee, asylum-seeking and Global Majority backgrounds. It also reports providing more than 30,000 free hot meals, 960 English classes and 864 youth dance classes.
The new strategy is designed to build on that experience while moving further into housing, employment, digital independence, youth leadership and organisational change.
For Tees Valley, the plan is rooted in a simple aim: helping more people build secure, lives and participate fully in the communities they now call home.