Lewisham Council has pledged to resettle 100 new refugee families in the next four years – more than any other London borough.

The families, who are mostly from Syria, are chosen because they have survived violence or torture, have other special protection needs or are particularly at risk.

The council helps families find housing, children settle into new schools and adults find work through a refugee resettlement scheme, with support from Lewisham Citizens, local faith groups and the local Amnesty International branch.

Local residents have also donated toys and clothes, household items and furniture to the scheme, as well as provided homes.

Programme manager Kris Gavin said the scheme was successful so far, and already supports 15 families. 

“At present it’s working well, there are issues sometimes. It is more difficult when you have arrived at 14 or 15 and you are landed with exams,” he said.

“One family, their son is doing A-levels and he is 20 years old so that proves there is a keenness to adapt and acclimatise so I would say it is definitely very positive.”

Mr Gavin said the families would not put extra pressure on the borough’s schools and healthcare providers, who are able to get funding from the Home Office.

“Schools are providing the provision that they can, [and] we are getting additional funding from the Home Office to provide additional Esol (English for speakers of other languages) courses for children,” Mr Gavin said. 

“Esol is a major provision for the adults but we are trying to ensure children are provided with extra support, especially the teenage children who are studying for GCSEs.”

Cabinet member for refugees Councillor Kevin Bonavia said the council sought to find homes which were previously unavailable for private rental, to be rented at local housing allowance rate.

“The way the current policy works is that the money we get from the Government is only enough to pay for rent at local housing rate, so we are asking the community to come forward to say to them, ‘look you are doing a good thing here – it is a mean-time use for a couple of years, and you will get rent a bit below the market rent,'” he said.

“And that is where we have been lucky – people have been happy to do that in Lewisham.”

Nuri Turkman’s family has benefited from the resettlement scheme.

He arrived from Syria with his wife, mother and four children aged two to 13 in December and said they were enjoying life in the borough with help from the council and charities.

Mr Turkman was working on improving his English in order to find work as a truck driver while his children were attending a local school, he said

Cllr Bonavia said befriending and language were some of the most important parts of integration, with learning English a priority for refugees.

Speaking at a Refugee Week event, Mr Bonavia said the borough has a “proud history” of accepting refugees.

“Here in Lewisham our residents came to us and said we want to help, we want to give homes, we want to provide support, we want to give language lessons and we as a council have tried to meet that need,” he said.

“When the community provides the homes we will make sure those homes are suitable for families.

“We were elected on a manifesto that we are committed to welcoming 100 additional families in the next four years and we are going to make that happen,” he said.

If you would like to lend your support to the programme contact svpr@lewisham.gov.uk.