Spotlight: UK for UNHCR

We are extremely proud of our partnership with UK for UNHCR, who provides emergency relief and safety for displaced people, working with communities to rebuild livelihoods and self-reliance in the wake of conflict. We interviewed Mark Hopkinson, Director of Partnerships & Fundraising at the organisation for a deep dive into their work.


UNHCR’s establishment and evolution

Founded in 1950, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, was established to support the repatriation of people forced to flee their homes during WWII. It was intended to be a temporary agency and was given a three-year mandate for its work but, as new displacement crises developed around the world, so did the need for UNHCR’s existence. While its core values remain the same (to ensure that people forced to flee their homes are protected), UNHCR is now a global organisation, working across over 120 countries.


Its remit has also expanded to support refugees, internally displaced people and stateless people, while ensuring legal protection, providing access to immediate life-saving support, enabling self-reliance through livelihoods, employment and education and developing long-term solutions such as voluntary repatriation, integration and resettlement.


UK for UNHCR was established in 2020 as the UN Refugee Agency’s national partner for the United Kingdom. It was designed to develop partnerships, expand funding and build solidarity for refugees among the UK population.


The communities UNHCR supports

UNHCR supports refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people and stateless people (those who are not recognised as a national by any country, excluding them from basic rights, protection and the legal framework that citizenship provides). The organisation can reach up to 1 million people with aid in just 72 hours when an emergency strikes, if flexible funding is in place.


UNHCR’s extensive global reach has supported an estimated 50 million refugees to access safety and rebuild their lives. The five biggest displacement crises it is currently addressing are in Sudan (where more than 11 million individuals have been displaced), Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Venezuela. The organisation works closely with community leaders, refugee groups, women’s networks, youth organisations and local civil societies to identify needs and design programmes, recognising their leadership, expertise and proximity to communities. It also funds and supports local-based organisations (many refugee-led) to ensure support remains as direct and relevant as possible.


Challenges in the current social, economic and political climate

Increasing conflict and displacement:


Decreasing funding:

  • Humanitarian funding cuts have had a devastating effect on the entire ecosystem of charities, international organisations and social enterprises, who are all now competing even more for individual and corporate support.
  • UNHCR was forced to close 75% of all safe spaces for women and girls in South Sudan last year, cutting off up to 80,000 refugees (many victims of gender-based violence) from medical care, psychosocial support, legal aid and income-earning outlets.
  • Funding cuts also forced UNHCR to suspend life-saving support for refugees in Egypt, leaving thousands without medical treatment or child-protection services.
  • Funding levels now are roughly what they were 10 years ago, when displacement was half what it is now.


Increasing polarisation and misinformation around refugees:

  • One aspect of UNHCR’s work is to build solidarity and awareness around refugees’ experience. This is proving an increasingly necessary task as polarisation and misinformation are becoming more widespread in the digital age.


How UNHCR measures success

UNHCR’s operations develop a multi-year results structure, which identifies desired changes and results from each operation over several years. The organisation’s global impact areas are Protect, Respond, Empower and Solve, broadly representing the framework of these desired aims. There are also 16 global outcome areas linked to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which inform UNHCR’s fundamental aims, such as WASH (clean water, sanitation and hygiene), child protection and access to registration.


The organisation monitors its success by allowing for a flexible and directional method of evaluation while also emphasising data and evidence, tracking results through a chain aligned with the UN’s system of impacts, outcomes and outputs.


UNHCR tracks indicators such as the number of people registered, accessing shelter and housing support and children accessing protection services. It uses these indicators to track more holistic measurements, such as the proportion of refugee children accessing education, safe drinking water and healthcare and the proportion of people who can access identity documents and return home.

More qualitatively, UNHCR ensures hotlines, help desks, community consultations and focus groups allow displaced people to share their views, influence decisions and inform the organisation’s movements, establishing formal systems to receive any feedback, complaints or questions.


In everything they do, UNHCR considers refugees and those forced to flee as partners, putting those most affected at the centre of planning and decision-making.


Inspiring stories

UNHCR’s scholarship programme, the Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative (DAFI) has been changing the lives of refugees for 34 years. It is one of the most acclaimed and longest standing higher-education programmes specifically for refugees in the world and has reached over 27,200 students across 59 countries since its inception. The programme enables refugees to access higher education by funding university scholarships. The impact of this is monumental and the number of refugees with access to higher education has jumped from 1% in 2019 to 9% in 2025.


Maya Ghazal’s story reflects the determination and aspirations shared by many displaced people when barriers to opportunity are removed. Maya fled war in Syria in 2015 when she was just 16. She came to the UK, taught herself English, finished school, graduated university with a degree in Aviation Engineering and Pilot Studies and became the first ever female Syrian refugee pilot. Maya was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR and helps support refugees and destigmatise the perception around them, accompanying the organisation on field visits and using her lived experience to fight for legal, educational and social rights of displaced people around the world. Her story is a powerful reminder that refugees, like anyone else, have ambitions and talents that can flourish with access to opportunity.  


Understanding UNHCR’s work and the realities of the communities it supports

UNHCR’s work is often reduced to emergency response, with less awareness of its equally important focus on long-term solutions for and with displaced people. Recognition of its work towards education, sustainable livelihoods and voluntary repatriation would help supporters understand the extent of UNHCR’s scope and, consequently, its need for flexible and multi-year funding, especially in light of funding cuts.


Misinformation and negative stereotypical perceptions of displaced people have damaging consequences. When people take time to hear and understand refugees’ lived experiences, looking beyond the statistics and media headlines to read the human stories behind them, they gain a clearer understanding of what it means to be forced to flee one’s home.


Displacement is one of the greatest global challenges of our time, yet its gravity is vastly underestimated. Raising awareness of this humanitarian situation is essential for cultivating solidarity and sustainable social support, both of which are critical for reinforcing legal and financial assistance. 


[Written by: Gemma Howard-Vyse]

2026: New Grants Announced

By Georgina Awoonor-Gordon • January 22, 2026
As we start a new year, we are delighted to announce the outcome of our second 2025 funding round, which awarded £446,517 to nine partners to fund projects across the world, with an additional £90,000 dedicated to emergency humanitarian response. Existing partnerships Trustees approved follow-on funding for existing partners who demonstrated strong evidence of the impact of their work in partner communities: AfriKids : We continue our support for AfriKids’ “Every Child in School 2026” project in Ghana, which aims to prioritise every child’s access to education and to improve literacy and numeracy proficiency. It supports parents and the wider communities in leading lasting changes, offering activities to expand livelihood support for parents and caregivers, enhance training in climate-smart agriculture in partnership and continue advocacy for teacher-retention policies. Consortium for Street Children (CSC): We have extended our partnership with CSC for a further two years of activities, which continue to place street-connected children at the heart of systemic change. The project will expand on the successful Kolkata initiative, deepening the capacity of duty bearers to include children’s rights in urban agendas and working to support and protect street-connected children in the city. Fields of Life (FoL): We continue our support of FoL’s I AM GIRL project in Uganda, which prioritises economic empowerment activities such as training teenage mothers in vocational skills. This project also focuses on increasing local knowledge, awareness and service uptake of adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights, including influencing policy and legal frameworks and raising awareness of these services in schools. Smart Girls Uganda : The Unleash Her Greatness project in Uganda will elevate the provision of skills, mentorship and innovative opportunities that create economic independence for young women and girls from disadvantaged communities. This next phase seeks to increase the focus on job opportunities through the integration of entrepreneurial and financial literacy membership, provide start-up toolkits to empower graduates to establish their own businesses and enhance the production of Ecojua Smart Bags. Smiling Through Light (STL): The next phase will scale up STL’s provision of clean, sustainable energy to off-grid and remote communities in Sierra Leone. Through this funding, STL will be able to focus on sustainability and expand its integration of digital solutions, engaging with off-grid sales training experts to advance their energy sales and reach more communities. Wasteaid : Pulling on lessons learnt from the first phase, this project will address waste management issues in Diepsloot and Cosmo City in South Africa. Activities will include more practical equipment for the “wastepreneurs” to get their enterprises off the ground following their practical training, in addition to increasing community engagement for greater sustainability. New partnerships In addition to deepening our existing partnerships, we have started working with three new partners who demonstrate strategic alignment with the Foundation’s values and priorities: STiR Education : Focuses on teacher motivation and establishing a space for teachers to network, collaborate, share strategies and experiences and support each other. This aims to improve the professional lives of teachers in Malaka and South-Central Timor, allowing them to feel happier and more confident in their positions and, consequently, inspiring children by creating a more sustainable learning environment. Hello World : Works to bridge the digital divide by providing connectivity, education and power to hard-to-reach communities. This project focuses on partnering with schools and marginalised communities to deliver cost-effective, scalable and community-led solutions to internet access, establishing Hello Hubs—solar-powered, internet-connected digital learning spaces with touchscreens and educational software. Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental (SPDA): This partnership will help SPDA strengthen and scale citizen-led conservation efforts, supporting communities, young leaders, private initiatives and grassroot collectives to transform conservation in Latin America. The project focuses on working with communities to improve nursery infrastructure, produce native and productive seedlings and test restoration models that integrate agroforestry and slope stabilisation. It also concentrates on climate-adaptation and developing participatory monitoring tools to inform regional policy and education. Humanitarian Response Under our Humanitarian Response pillar, we are proud to continue our partnership with the British Red Cross for its Gaza Crisis Appeal, UNRWA for the rehabilitation of schools in the West Bank and UK for UNHCR towards its support of Afghan refugees.

Announcement: New Grants Approved

By Georgina Awoonor-Gordon • June 26, 2025
EA FOUNDATION: New Grants Announced We are delighted to announce the results of our first funding round in 2025, which awarded a total of £443,770 to 10 partners to fund projects across the world. EXISTING PARTNERSHIPS The Trustees have approved follow-on funding for existing partners who demonstrated strong evidence of the impact of their work on partner communities. The Board’s decision to provide further funding to Mercy Hands Europe is based on a nurtured partnership over the last four years. As one of our longest-standing partners to date, we have been impressed by their thoughtful and collaborative approach to their work. With partners IACO, they have invested in the economic strengthening of communities in the in Al-Bab District in Syria over many years, and this grant of nearly £100,000 sees the evolution of our partnership by making further investment to revive the district’s extra virgin olive oil industry. With a grant of £15,000, AdAmi Project will contribute to deepening its invaluable support to young mothers in Bo, Sierra Leone, enabling them to build brighter futures by providing career guidance, employability training services, building stronger relationships with local employers. Building on our previous investment in this project at the end of 2023, with this follow-on grant of £50,000, Vita will now focus on strengthening field-based activities to deepen community impact in the fuel-efficient stoves programme, ensuring sustained adoption and long-term change. Our initial partnership with the Wonder Foundation was for the refurbishment of a kitchen providing a space to train women vulnerable to dangerous and exploitative employment, including trafficking and prostitution. Managed by their in-country partner Fundación Sirama in El Salvador, further funding of just over £51,000 goes even further to provide hospitality training courses, one-to-one mentoring and job placements with industry partners to 120 women at risk over two years. NEW PARTNERSHIPS In addition to deepening our existing partnerships, we are excited to announce our engagement with new partners who demonstrated sound strategic alignment: The Board approved just under £50,000 to PEAS to further their commitment to their ‘Inspect and Improve’(I&I) programme, improving education standards for marginalized students in rural Uganda. To the Zimbabwe Educational Trust , we committed just over £30,000 to address Zimbabwe’s birth registration crisis. The project works to improve access to birth certificates, thereby addressing barriers to accessing vital basic services which require birth documentation. Our partnership with Shivia sees investment of nearly £35,000 in a self-sustaining model of goat rearing, empowering women and their families in the state of Bihar to increase income and improve nutrition. Savannah Education Trust will address a major barrier of teacher attrition rates in Lawra district, Upper West Ghana. Our grant of £45,000 will facilitate the construction of vital accommodation for teachers which will serve to strengthen retention in the rural community. It is estimated that deaf children are three times more likely to be abused globally, compared to their hearing peers. With funding of just over £44,000, DeafKidz International through their DK Defenders programme will work to improve the safeguarding and learning outcomes of 660 Deaf children (50% girls) in three schools in Western Cape and Eastern Cape, South Africa. Period poverty remains a key barrier to girls staying in school. Designed by their in-country partner COFCAWE, with our grant of £23,000, All We Can and partner will ensure sustained access to menstrual hygiene products and knowledge on menstrual hygiene management for 5,000 vulnerable girls in Busoga, Uganda, empowering them to stay in school, pursue their education & break the cycle of poverty. END

New Partnerships Announcement

By Georgina Awoonor-Gordon • February 1, 2025
We are delighted to announce our new funded partners from our grants round in September 2024. For this round, we specifically sought to collaborate with organisations working tangibly to address environmental challenges. In addition to the focus on environmental sustainability, we provided follow-on funding to an existing partner, Global Girl Project, and responded to several global humanitarian appeals as outlined below.

A Safer Place

By Yas Comez • October 17, 2024
In January this year, the EA Foundation awarded £25,000 to the Refugee Council towards its Refugee Advice Project (RAP). Last month, our Communications volunteer Yasmin Comez accompanied EA Foundation's Director Georgina Awoonor-Gordon on a visit to the Refugee Council at their offices in East London. Here, Yasmin reflects on the visit and the impact of our funding.
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