For Domenica, welcoming refugees isn’t just an act of service, it’s a roadmap to faith in action. We sat down with her to find out what that looks like in practice.
You’ve been involved in Community Sponsorship since its earliest days in the UK. How did that all begin, and what does your role look like today?
My job title is Strategic Lead for Sanctuary and Racial Justice. My role is to lead the strategy on sanctuary and racial justice for the Canterbury Diocese. My role is also to lead Community Sponsorship as the Church of England national rep.
My journey with Community Sponsorship started in 2016, when we had the first family resettled through Community Sponsorship with Archbishop Justin. I was a newbie at the time, and I just fell in love. I could see the potential, the transformative potential of the scheme in our churches.
At the time, there was no Reset, there was no one, and I put together my own slides for Community Sponsorship and started raising awareness about the scheme. I started spreading the word within the community in Canterbury and talking to people who I felt would be well-positioned to form a group.
I approached a potential group with my makeshift slides, and we had infinite coffees about Community Sponsorship. I helped the group to form, gave them all the information about how to form a group, the best way to do it, the roles. Then they came to me and said, how shall we call it? And I said, let’s call it Canterbury Welcomes Refugees. They have now resettled three families through Community Sponsorship.
From there I kept raising awareness and organising regional events and roundtables with church leaders. Then in 2019 I was elected as a member of the Community Sponsorship Council, which has since become the Community Sponsorship Alliance.
I was sitting in all this space on behalf of the Church of England, and I thought there was an opportunity to legitimise this role and this involvement of the church. As faith groups, usually we do things and we are not very good at acknowledging what we do, or publicly sharing what we do. And oftentimes, church groups are recruited by bigger organisations to do the work, but then the outcome goes to the big organisation – and somehow the contribution of the church volunteers is diluted. I wanted to change that.
You speak about community-led welcome as something that goes far beyond a charitable act. How do you frame it for church communities?
I truly believe that churches are superbly, favourably positioned to lead this work and to inspire others. What I always loved about Community Sponsorship is that as a scheme it’s not insular. You need to work with other people, people that you don’t know, but also to reinforce the social capital you already have. A congregation in itself is an ecosystem of potential – there are loads of people who are inspired to live out the gospel.
For us, as Church of England, community-led welcome is a roadmap to faith in action. We give you the instruments, the opportunity to live out the gospel, to embody Christ’s compassion in modern times. Oftentimes you are told to walk in Jesus’ shoes, to love with his heart, to operate with his hands, to think with his mind, and to speak his words with all your senses. That’s the outcome. And we give you the opportunity that, through journeying with families who need a place to call home, who need to build their life, you can unleash your potential and live out your faith.
Community-led welcome implies a very deep discernment. And it’s not insular. It’s a wonderful interfaith chance that churches have to work together with others.
You talk about community-led welcome as an opportunity for spiritual growth, not just service. What do you mean by that?
With Community for Afghans, what we are doing is putting together a spiritual pack, a companion. For those who want it, we are going to offer a resource pack for spiritual growth. It’s offered as a companion. It doesn’t have to be done, it’s optional.
Community-led welcome has always been framed with ‘this is something nice that you need to do, and for us Christians it is an imperative to welcome the stranger’. I want to revisit that, and I want to give an opportunity to revisit the meaning of welcoming the stranger. Who is the stranger? The stranger could be you within yourself. The journey with the family is an opportunity to meet yourself, to understand yourself, to understand your hidden biases, your own human misconceptions.
Welcoming the stranger is welcoming Jesus. There are people who know the Bible from start to finish, but that doesn’t mean they have a deep relationship with Jesus, but they may long for it. They want it. But you need to walk the walk. Through the courageous encounter with a new neighbour that you’ve helped resettle, you have a courageous encounter with yourself, with your soul, and you also have a courageous encounter with Jesus; an encounter that you may have longed to have but never had an opportunity to live out. That’s our overall foundational belief when we support church communities to engage with community-led welcome.
What does this transformation within your church communities look like on the ground?
To see something that is transformational, you need to be positioned to see it. I’ve seen what I call everyday miracles.
For example, people realise how hard it is for families to get a job. It’s not because people are lazy, it’s not because they don’t want to learn the language, it’s not because they don’t apply for jobs. It’s because people do face systemic barriers and biases. So when that click happens, when a volunteer comes to me and says, “I can see that he is really struggling with his mental health, because he’s applying to all the jobs possible, he is volunteering, he is going to English classes, he is sending in CVs, and yet he can’t even get a cleaning job” – that moment, from someone who last year or two years ago was inclined to think differently, is a transformative moment.
And there are moments when a family realises how supported they are within their journey. People can be very proud; we went through war and came back in one piece, we lost everything, our identity, and we are starting to put the pieces together in a foreign land. When people acknowledge that someone from outside their own family has become part of their extended family and is helping them in the community, that is transformational. That is the seed of belonging in a very strange environment.
Transformation doesn’t have to be a big moment. It’s those very brief moments that change your mindset completely. And when our congregations realise that this is not some sort of charity that sits on their shoulders – this is part of their living faith, of living out their faith – that little realisation changes people’s mindset. That changes a culture. That’s the transformative power of community-led welcome.
And what about you personally? After nearly a decade in this work, how has it shaped who you are?
The two things that come to my mind are resilience and grit, in abundance. And a deep belief.
When you get to a certain point in your life, you start to understand how all past experiences link up to make you who you are. Community Sponsorship has been an integral part of who I am now; the enthusiasm, the vision, the challenges with the small numbers, the work with the government, to see how Community Sponsorship has transformed colleagues involved in the journey. For myself, but also for others, being involved in community-led welcome has strengthened a whole sector with further resilience, further grit. And a bigger vision for community-led welcome to be fair, to be just, and to be broadened, so that it goes beyond a country-specific scheme but is a needs-specific way of bringing people to the UK safely.
Community-led welcome is within me. It’s so ingrained, so much a part of who I am personally and professionally. Because it’s something that touches everyone. Everyone is transformed – the children of volunteer groups are transformed, the husbands, in conversations at the café, around dinner, at Christmas, when people are invited to celebrate at people’s houses, when people see how others’ faith relates to their own, and learn from each other. It’s transformative.
Finally, for anyone reading this who feels called to get involved, whether through their church or simply through their faith, what would you say to them?
I am the national rep for the Church of England, but I can talk to everyone and anyone. If someone wants to explore more about community-led welcome in their own area and how that might look, I would love to put people in contact. If they want to get into the Community for Afghans model, I’m more than happy to be put in touch. If they want to explore the Home Office model of Community Sponsorship and understand how it has worked for other church-led groups, I am available.
What I like to do, and what I’ve done with Church of England groups, is link them up with other groups who have already done the same and let them do the talking. Because having people who have already been through that experience, despite how challenging it can be at times, and who are still willing to say, “you need to do this” – that says it all.
As far as you want to explore community-led welcome – whether you feel you belong to the Church of England, whether you feel you don’t, whether you’re exploring and don’t really know where you belong – just get in touch, and we will find a way. The Church of England currently has 24 Community Sponsorship groups, and there are also groups through the Methodist Church, the Salvation Army, and others.
And I would say this: you are tempted to think that you are only empowering someone else. But you are empowering yourself. Empowerment is a multi-levelled journey. Of course, you help a family. But we will give you the tools to open your eyes to how this journey empowers you as well, how families empower you as well, and the opportunity for opening your eyes to other social justice issues right on your doorstep. The problem can feel so huge: what contribution can I make? Well, you can help a family feel grounded, rooted in your community, and live out the Gospel. That is something precious. It’s an opportunity you cannot miss.
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Sponsoring a refugee family is a significant responsibility. We advocate for Community Sponsors to ensure that they are properly supported throughout their journey.
Our advocacy focuses on representing the views of Community Sponsors to the Home Office to support them in implementing the necessary operational changes.
We also represent the views of Community Sponsors to other key stakeholders, including Local Authorities, international organisations, the wider resettlement field, housing providers and financial institutions. We also use our voice to campaign on policies affecting refugees. We are members of the Together With Refugees coalition, campaigning for a more humane approach to people seeking protection in the UK.
