Lots of faith communities in Leeds are joining in with the City of Sanctuary movement.

We invite synagogues, churches, mosques, temples, and other places of worship to help us make Leeds a place of safety and welcome. Groups are already running weekly food collections for refugee charities, standing bail for people seeking asylum, and welcoming people seeking sanctuary into their congregations.

Could your faith community sign our Promise of Support? Could you welcome people to your building, call for change to the asylum system, or put up a welcome sign?

If you can, or if you are already acting, we’d love to hear from you.

Faith-based groups who are already supporting Leeds City of Sanctuary include:

Stainbeck Church (United Reformed), a small, friendly, open and welcoming congregation with some experience of welcoming asylum seekers and refugees. They are also supporting PAFRAS, LASSN, Manuel Bravo and other such groups. Stainbeck Church run a Community Cafe held on Thursdays 11am-2pm as a place to find support and friendship as well as some English conversation practice. There is also free use of computers with wifi.

Sinai Synagogue hosted a very successful interfaith meeting which had over 100 people attending, and invited refugees and asylum seekers to join them for their community Pesach meal. They have also give space to City of Sanctuary events and found us volunteers.

Leeds Christian Community Trust helps Christians to make a positive difference to Leeds.

Hamara and Islamic Relief worked in partnership with City of Sanctuary to host a community iftar (breaking of the fast meal) this Ramadan, and to raise awareness of asylum and refugee issues within the Muslim community.

St George’s Church warmly welcomes all those seeking sanctuary in Leeds. As part of this we offer a weekly meal and conversational English class open to all asylum seekers and refugees every Monday 5:30-7:30pm in our Church Centre. We have a weekly drop-in session, Thursdays 6-7pm where there is time to provide a listening ear, support or signpost asylum seekers who attend the church or English class. We also host sessions offered by Manuel Bravo and the Children Society’s LEAP project.

Concord, the Leeds Interfaith Group, is working to include City of Sanctuary in more of their events. For example, City of Sanctuary will have a stall at their November Interfaith Week event.

Many other faith communities are involved – see the complete list and please get in touch if you would like to join us.