Perhaps you, like us, have watched endless horrifying news reports of the destruction in Syria, and seen images of families forced to run for their lives from their homes; Perhaps also you, like us, felt that you wanted to do something - anything - to help..

That's why we formed The Welcome Committee. We're a group of concerned Londoners doing something positive as a community to support refugees. We are doing this through sponsoring two Syrian refugee families to settle in London - giving them a fresh start, the chance to rebuild their lives in peace and hopefully have a new place they can call home.

These refugee families have been identified by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Home office as in need of resettlement and the Home office select the families for us. Once they arrive, they will have official refugee status.

The Welcome Committee will be doing everything from finding the family members a place to live, to getting their medical checks, setting up bank accounts, helping them learn English, getting the kids into school - meeting all of their needs as much as we can for two years. We hope that this will give them the best chance of really settling into life in London.

But we can't do this alone - we need your help. 

We're currently raising money to get going, which is the first in a long list of steps to bring the families over here. As you can imagine, moving to London and starting your life over from scratch doesn't come cheap, so we really want to raise as much as we can.

Just think how it will feel for them to have this opportunity to start again, and to feel welcomed, safe and settled in a new home and a new life. Further down the line, we will need all sorts of people with all sorts of skills to get involved in a range of ways.

This is your chance to change lives. Please donate today, and share with anyone else you think might want to help.

Thank you.

PS If you are interested in setting up a group like this of your own, or just to read more about the scheme, have a look here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apply-for-full-community-sponsorship