Our members

The British Red Cross provides practical and emotional support to vulnerable refugees and asylum-seekers in the UK.  Our services include supporting refugees to adapt to life in a new country through our orientation service as well as peer befriending for unaccompanied young refugees. We also provide one-to-one social and emotional support for refugee women through our women in crisis projects and bring about the reunion of separated families through our family reunion and resettlement service. Finally, we provide short-term emergency support and advice on support that may be available to destitute asylum seekers.

The Bradford Rohingya community was created in 2008 and later became the British Rohingya Community. We are based in Bradford in the UK and our team consists of members from the Rohingya population that have come to the UK through the UNCHR and Home office Gateway Protection UK. We campaign to ensure members of the Rohingya community in Burma have their human rights realised and are able to live equally and without fear. Our team is also dedicated to raising awareness and increasing media attention towards the plight of the Rohingya in Burma. 

Bronwen Manby is an independent consultant in the field of human rights, democracy and good governance, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa, and visiting senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics.  Previously she worked for the Open Society Foundations and Human Rights Watch. Recently, her research and writing have focused on statelessness, comparative nationality law, and legal identity, and she has worked closely with UNHCR on its global campaign against statelessness. 

Caia Vlieks graduated cum laude in International and European Public Law and is a student of the Research Master in Law at Tilburg Law School. She has conducted an analysis of Dutch “no fault” case files with a view to discovering to what extent statelessness plays a role in the decision-making and has written her Master’s Thesis on the extent to which the European Convention on Human Rights obliges states to determine statelessness. Her future research will focus on the protection of stateless persons and the prevention of statelessness by the legal framework of the Council of Europe. 

Caritas-Vienna provides legal advice and representation before the authorities and the courts for asylum seekers and migrants in irregular situations.

The Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) is the ecumenical agency on migration and integration, asylum and refugees, and against racism and discrimination in Europe. Members are Anglican, Orthodox and Protestant Churches and Councils of Churches as well as church-related agencies in presently 19 European countries. CCME cooperates with the Conference of European Churches and the World Council of Churches.

Cecilia Manzotti is a PhD researcher at the School of Law, Politics and Sociology of the University of Sussex. Her research focuses on the determination of the nationality status of asylum seekers and refugees, including their possible statelessness, in Europe. Previously, she worked in refugee status determination, first as a legal advisor with Africa and Middle Refugee Assistance (AMERA) in Cairo, and later as a decision-maker with UNHCR in Egypt, Turkey and Italy. Cecilia also worked in wider refugee protection, and more recently served as a consultant with UNHCR in Guinea, focusing on statelessness. Moreover, she conducted research on migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons with UNODC and contributed to UNODC publications on these topics.

The private informational non-governmental organization "The Center for Refugee Support was founded on October 4, 2015 by Alena Mikhalevich. Within the frameworks of our activities, we started providing free consulting services for refugees, asylum seekers and displaced individuals from the first days of our establishment. By the end of 2016 we carried out 135 consultations mostly for displaced persons from Ukraine. We started an informational campaign about other organizations in Belarus that provide financial support for the refugees and asylum seekers. We cooperate with local authorities, lawyers and media. Our main media partner is the Belarusian Association of Journalists. 
Our mission is to create a society in which all people who seek protection are equally welcome. We are committed to the rights and protection of refugees in Belarus as well as their settlement and safety in our country.

Christiana Bukalo is the co-founder of Statefree and Trustee of the European Network on Statelessness. Christiana was born in Germany to West African parents and has been affected by statelessness since then. Motivated by her increasing frustration around intransparency, lack of information and the communication gap between stateless individuals and organisations, she decided to create www.statefree.world, a digital platform for stateless people and their allies (NGOs, academics, lawyers etc.). Statefree’s mission is to facilitate communication, information sharing and connection between stateless individuals and their advocates by providing a space that enables community building. Prior to starting Statefree Christiana worked various areas, some of which included Communication, Change Management, Organisational Development & Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

The Civic Assistance Committee for Refugees (CAC) was established in 1990 and provides legal and humanitarian assistance to persons seeking asylum or other kinds of protection status in Russia. CAC provides reception assistance, including as a partner of UNHCR. It also conducts special projects of a humanitarian, legal, rehabilitative and/or educational nature. CAC is part of the MEMORIAL Human Rights Center Migration Rights Network. CAC has also worked on the penitentiary system and against xenophobia. Since 2014 it has conducted a project on expert activities in the area of lawmaking.