At the heart of our strategy is our mission to work with and empower people with lived experience as a refugee or of the asylum system to influence the issues that matter to them. This began with us ensuring that our trustee board was representative – currently, 40% of the Board is made up of people with lived experience.

We now also have six groups, including a national steering group that feeds into our Board. We want to connect and empower people. We want to give dignity to people whilst they’re seeking asylum. We are committed to empowering experts by experience (EBEs) to campaign on the issues of importance to them, input into the development of Refugee Action’s services and shape the strategy of the entire organisation. Once an expert by experience demonstrates an interest by getting in touch with us, we will have a short informal interview to assess their interest and time commitment to join our sessions.