FRIENDS WITHOUT BORDERS

Friends Without Borders Documentary

28/1/2025

youtu.be/Zxb0jyGg-Q0

Last year we started production on a documentary to celebrate the 30 years of the charity and its now online for you to enjoy! Please feel free to give it a watch and leave us your views!

Friends Without Borders Fundraiser

20/11/2024

On Friday November 1st we ran a fundraiser and raised £870, as well as being a wonderful evening of cultural diversity and promoting awareness of refugees and asylum seekers and celebrating 30 years of Friends Without Borders. The event was masterminded and organised by trustee Jan Probert and with the support of trustee Majid Dhana, Rachel and Sam, the planning came together.

The event started with our trustee and compere, Lia, giving a welcome introduction and was followed by an evening of entertainment. We were very fortunate to have excellent music acts including pipers from the Rose and Thistle Bagpipes, violinist Charlie Cole, Do You Get It and DrumNation Tribe, alongside soul poetry from Zac and Majid Dhana and dance by Templar. We also had a raffle
with some amazing prizes, so a huge thank you to everyone who supported the prizes and to the artists who performed. We would also like to say thank you to the staff from our venue at The Dockyard Club for hosting the event.
The event was a culmination of the excellent hard work our volunteers do and a celebration of our clients, who had an opportunity to enjoy themselves and engage with some local artists. We hope we can do more fundraisers in the future to showcase even more of the talent this city has to offer.

Friends Without Borders Fundraiser

24/9/2024

On November 1st we are hosting a fundraiser to celebrate our 30 year anniversary!
Join us at The Dockyard Club for a night of fun and giving back. This event is all about coming together to support a great cause while enjoying good company. Let's make a difference and show that friendship knows no borders. Your presence will make a difference, so mark your calendars and get ready for a memorable evening. See you there!
Tickets can be purchased at the link below:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/friends-without-borders-fundraiser-tickets-1008194375517

Friends Without Borders AGM 13/09/24

19/9/2024

Last Friday was our AGM and a celebration of the 30 years of Friends Without Borders and 10 years of Access to Justice. It was a fantastic evening and we would like to thank our volunteers for running the event.
Jan worked hard to organise the evening, which was hosted by Alison. Trustees were once again sworn in, followed by an informative talk by our treasurer Geoff. Our guest speaker was former trustee and activist, Mike Brown, who gave an intuitive and invaluable talk about what the past decade should teach us about refugee support in the decade to come. Mike used to be a trustee in the early 2000's and has extensive knowledge about the foundation of Friends Without Borders. After the talk, we had delicious food from Afghanistan, provided by Simramjeet.
The end of the evening premiered the Friends Without Borders 30 year celebration documentary made by our administrator Sam Bell. We would once again like to thank everyone who attended and the volunteers for giving the time to the event.

On Tuesday 13th August, a group from the charity Friends Without Borders (FWB) were taken on a day trip via train, by Lucy Lomax, Rail Officer from The Hampshire Community Rail Partnership. Our group of seven clients with seven children and two FWB volunteers were met at Portsmouth and Southsea train station by Lucy, along with Linda Barnard from South West Trains.
The idea of the trip was to introduce our clients to train travel and we started our journey at the ticket office learning how to purchase a ticket and use new vocabulary such as single or return ticket, how to read the electronic timetables and which platform to head for. Linda gave us platform safety advice such as staying behind the yellow line until the train stops and how to call for assistance.
We had wonderful sunny weather and it was a joy to travel through the countryside, with the children spotting cows and sheep from the windows as we headed to Petersfield. At Petersfield, we collected snacks and walked through the pretty town to the Heath for a picnic and games. On the way back we were treated to ice-creams, which were very welcome in the heat.
Our clients thoroughly enjoyed the day and Friends Without Borders would like to say a huge thank you to Lucy and Linda for giving us all this opportunity and experience. We hope that our clients will now feel more confident and equipped to undertake train travel in the future.

Friends Without Borders BBQ Refugee Week June 2024

11/7/2024

Friends Without Borders celebrated Refugee Week 2024 with a big community BBQ in the
newly renovated garden at the All Saints Church. The BBQ was a time for celebration and
we came together in partnership with Kitchen of Hope (Portsmouth City of Sanctuary) who
provided chefs, 432 Nomads who entertained us with Drum Nation, music and poetry and
Harbour Church supplied the garden and cooker. We were visited by Deputy Lord Mayor
Vernon-Jackson who chatted with clients and volunteers. Friends Without Borders would
like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped and all those who attended, you
made it a wonderful celebration. We had very positive comments afterwards, to quote a
few:
“What a lovely BBQ, such a wonderful event to be part of”.
“It was wonderful that so many organisations took part”.
“Very, very successful event – a good time was had by all!
Thanks to all who helped.

Portsmouth University Dental School

16/5/2024

We were very pleased that two students from the Portsmouth University Dental School attended our drop-in on 25th April to give talks about Oral Hygiene Instruction (OHI). We would like to extend a huge thank you to the students and dental school for their assistance and look forward to welcoming them back in autumn. The dental school have also kindly allowed us to make referrals to their community dental scheme, which is excellent news as accessing dentists has been a big challenge for many of our clients.

Friends Without Borders (Portsmouth) would like to say a big THANK YOU to the Al Mahdi
Centre, Fareham for their very generous donation of food for our clients. In particular, we
would like to thank Mahdiya Datoo and Kausar Arifi, who in between their GCSE studies,
organised the collection during the holy month of Ramadhan. They worked hard to create
posters and advertisements asking for donations and clearly researched suitable products
to collect and purchase. It was lovely to meet Mahdiya and Kausar when they presented
the donations to both Friends Without Borders (FWB) and the Fareham and Gosport Food
Banks. FWB Client Services Manager, Rachel said “I had a wonderful surprise when I
received an email from resident Alim, Sheikh Fazle Abbas Datoo telling me about the
donation and I know that our clients will be very grateful for the extra help”.

Fair Trade Anniversary

6/3/2024

On Tuesday 5th March, Friends Without Borders were invited to attend Portsmouth Fairtrade Forum’s reception to celebrate 20 years of Portsmouth being a Fairtrade City. The event was hosted at the Mayor’s Parlour by the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, Cllr Tom Coles and Lady Mayoress Nikki Coles. Fairtrade is about better prices, decent working conditions and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. Twenty years as a Fairtrade City is a wonderful achievement and follows lots of hard work. It means that Portsmouth City Council supports Fairtrade and that Fairtrade products are available in local shops, cafes and restaurants, as well as local businesses, schools, public services, churches and voluntary organisations have committed to supporting Fairtrade. The celebrations will continue during Fairtrade Fortnight from 9th to 22nd September, when we will celebrate 30 years of the Fairtrade Mark in the UK.

Kite flying day in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan August 20th 2022

22/8/2022

A fantastic day on Saturday was held flying the kites which we had made and decorated during the drop in sessions at All Saints's Church and then flown on Southsea Common in support of the people of Afghanistan, for who kite flying is like playing football for people of the UK. One quote from one of the Afghani community who attended was “ It was lovely to meet you today and I really appreciate all yours support towards Afghans, and thanks for your work on today’s event, it was really a great time for me and everyone. All families and kids have enjoyed. I am working with the British council and it was a very pleasure for me to coordinate with all Afghan families who arrived in Portsmouth and with the help of good chance organization your support was able to bring a smile on the face of everyone and remind them of their great time they had back home in Afghanistan.”