About KCRS

Organisation and Purpose

We were registered on 5/June/2018 as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)

1178647 - KINGSTON COMMUNITY REFUGEE SPONSORSHIP

Our charitable Objects are registered as: “The relief of poverty and the preservation and protection of health of those seeking asylum or granted leave to remain in the UK who reside or wish to reside temporarily or permanently in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames or the surrounding area by providing aid, accommodation, support and education and by facilitating the integration of refugees and asylum seekers into the wider community”

Our current activities are registered as:

“Resettling refugee families according to the provisions of the community sponsorship scheme.”

Our activities are managed by a Board of Trustees.

Our members, individuals and organisations, elect the Board of Trustees at Annual General Meetings and decide upon motions raised by the trustees or by the membership.

Our governing constitution can be accessed here.

Brief History

KCRS began as a small informal group of Kingston residents who attended an event in Kingston’s Guildhall to advertise the launch of the UK government’s Community Sponsorship scheme. After this event we got together to talk through how we might activate Community Sponsorship of refugee families in the Kingston area.

The Home Office rules for the scheme required that we either find a registered charity to act as an umbrella for our work or register as a charity ourselves. We decided that it would be better to be an independent charity and so applied to the Charity Commission. In June 2018 we became registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). We chose “Kingston Community Refugee Sponsorship” as our name and were assigned charity registration number 1178647.