our patrons

lord Dubs

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Lord Dubs is a Labour politician and leading refugee rights advocate. He was MP for Battersea 1979-1987, during which time he served for four years as a shadow Home Office Minister.

After leaving the Commons in 1987, he became the Director of the Refugee Council and was appointed as a Labour life peer in 1994.

In 1997, after Labour’s election victory, he was appointed as a Minister in Northern Ireland where he served until the establishment of a new devolved administration following the Good Friday Agreement.

In 2016, he sponsored an amendment (which later became known as the “Dubs Amendment”) to the Immigration Act 2016, to offer some unaccompanied refugee children stranded in camps in Europe safe passage to Britain, having himself arrived in Britain in 1939 as a six-year-old refugee fleeing the Nazis in Czechoslovakia.

He currently serves on the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly and on the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly. He continues to campaign on human rights and specifically on behalf of refugees.

GAVIN ESLER

A journalist, author and broadcaster, Mr Esler is best known as the long-time anchor of the BBC’s Newsnight (2003-14). Before that, he was the BBC’s chief correspondent in North America (1990-98), and has also worked on Dateline London and other BBC programmes.

Mr Esler is the author of five novels and four works of non-fiction, including Britain is Better Than This (2023). He has won a Royal Television Society Award and a Sony Gold.

Mr Esler is a BAFTA member and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is an alumni of the University of Kent, and was awarded an honorary MA in 1995 and an Honorary Doctor of Civil Law in 2005. He is a former UKC Chancellor.

BARONESS NEUBERGER

Photo by Guillermo and Lucy Tomasino

Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger DBE is Chair of University College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Chair of Whittington Health NHS Trust. She was Senior Rabbi of the West London Synagogue from 2011 until March 2020 and is now Rabbi Emerita.

She is a cross bench Peer in the House of Lords, former Chief Executive of the King’s Fund from 1997 to 2004, and won a Harkness Fellowship to study healthcare ethics at Harvard University (1991-2).

Baroness Neuberger is a founding Trustee of the Walter and Liesel Schwab Charitable trust, set up in memory of her parents. She was a Trustee of the Van Leer Group Foundation and Chairman of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She chaired the Review of the Liverpool Care Pathway for Dying Patients in 2013 and was Vice Chair, Mental Health Act Independent Review 2017-2018.

She is also a member of the Executive Board, Leo Baeck Institute London and she is a Trustee of the Rayne Foundation, she was also Chair of Independent Age and a Commissioner of the UK Commission on Bereavement. She a Commissioner on the Integration of Refugees, a Trustee of Yad Hanadiv (Charitable Foundation) and Chair of the City of London Oversight Committee. Baroness Neuberger is Public Voice Representative, on the Jewish Community’s BRCA Testing Programme.

Baroness Neuberger is an author and broadcaster. Her latest book on antisemitism What it is. What it isn’t. Why it matters (Orion Books) was published in May 2019. She is currently working on a book on pain and how we approach pain relief.

Studio Lenca (also known as Jose Campos) is a contemporary artist from El Salvador, now based in Margate, Kent. His work is shaped by his own experience as a young refugee and explores themes of migration, belonging and memory.

Before working full-time as an artist, Jose was a teacher in South East London for 10 years. This background continues to inform his practice, which often involves collaboration with groups and individuals who have lived experience of displacement.

Jose’s work has been shown internationally, with recent commissions including MoMA PS1 in New York and Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. He is currently based at TKE Studios, founded by Tracey Emin.

Jose first began working with young people from KRAN in 2021 through Arts Education Exchange in Margate. Since then, his relationship with KRAN has grown through a shared commitment to creativity, education and supporting young people with refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds.

STUDIO LENCA

Our funders

GRANTS (January-December 2024)

AB Charitable Trust

AB Charitable Trust - Solidarity Fund

Bennelong Foundation

Charities Aid Foundation Keystone Fund

Children In Need

Choose Love

Colyer Fergusson Charitable Trust

Cummins

Cycling Uk

Esmee Fairbairn Foundation

French Huguenot Church of London Charitable Trust

Garfield Weston Foundation

John Swire 1989 Charitable Trust

Kent Community Foundation

Kent County Council

Lloyds Bank Foundation

People United

Philip and Connie Phillips Foundation

Postcode Community Trust - Millionaire Street Grant Fund

Saga Group Limited

The Albert Burns Children's Trust Fund

The Bell Educational Trust

The Changing Lives Fund

The Civic Power Fund

The Hardy Family Foundation

The National Community Lottery

The National Lottery Heritage Fund

The Tolkien Trust

The Tudor Trust

Trinity College London Arts Award

University of Kent Student Philanthropy Fund


DONATIONS (January-December 2024)

Airbnb Social Impact Program

Ashford & Folkestone Quaker Meeting

Bedgebury Foundation

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Christ Church Student Union

Deal Film Club

Edward Vinson 1957 Charitable Settlement 

Faversham & Villages Refugee Solidarity Group

French Walloon Church Canterbury

Hampstead Fine Arts College

Herne CE Junior School

Ipswich Sangha

Missions Committee United Church Crowborough

Monkton Nature Reserve

Refugee Action

Saga Group Limited

Simon Langton Girls Grammar School

St Dunstan with Holy Cross PCC, Canterbury

St Martin & St Paul PCC, Canterbury

Studio Lenca

The Junior King’s School

USA Pastors Group

Youth Access

LEARNING FOR LIFE

  • Canterbury regular partners

    University of Kent

    Canterbury College

    Canterbury Christ Church University

    Kent Police

  • Trips/Talks Partners

    NHS

    Kent Fire Service

    Natural England

    Canterbury Library

    Canterbury Cathedral

    Dover Castle

ADVOCACY AND SUPPORT

  • Activity Partners

    Rising Sun

    The Gulbenkian

    Kent Cricket Community Trust

    People United

  • Other KEY PARTNERS

    Diocese of Canterbury

    Cummins

    UK Trauma Council

    Imix

    Refugee Action

    Refugee Council ‘My VIew’

  • Case work

    KCC Social Services

    Refugee Council

    British Red Cross

    Refugees at home

    Room for Refugees

    Kent Law Clinic

    Migrant Law Project

    NLS Solicitors

    RKB Law