About Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and the post of ‘Development Manager – Fundraising and Communications’.

Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU) exists to advise, support, represent, and campaign with people who are affected by immigration control. The Unit has been in existence since 1990 and provides expert legal advice on all issues of immigration, asylum, nationality, and human rights.

We are looking to recruit a ‘Development Manager – Fundraising and Communications’ (21-35 hours per week) to increase for our fundraising efforts so that the organisation is secure and sustainable for the longer-term. We also need to make sure that we remain independent and true to our core values and principles so that we can do what’s needed to support people who are subject to immigration control.

This post is funded by the Cabinet Office ‘Local Sustainability Fund’ until May 2017.

GMIAU is a registered charity and company limited by guarantee. All our services are free.

Our Objectives are:

To provide free, confidential, independent information, advice, support, representation, and advocacy services to communities most affected by immigration controls;

To assist people who are on a low income (or none) trying to obtain entry/leave to remain in the UK for themselves and/or for family members;

To liase and develop links with other agencies dealing with immigration, asylum and nationality issues. This includes asylum, domestic violence, trafficking, forced labour, and FGM;

To promote access to justice for those subject to immigration control;

To provide support to individual and national campaigns;

To provide training on asylum, immigration and nationality issues.

Staff at GMIAU

There are currently 25 staff including a team of experienced immigration advisors, a children and young person’s support worker, and a social worker. We also run a number of projects to support people who are newly arrived in the UK and seeking asylum, and refugees. We take social work students on placement, and we have approximately 20 volunteers at any one time. We are governed by a voluntary Board of Trustees.

Services

Legal Immigration Casework:

We carry out Casework and Representation including judicial review and appeals in the Higher Courts. We have offices in Manchester and one in Liverpool.

Outreach sessions:

We run advice sessions in the community to meet the needs of particular groups of people, including WAST (Women Asylum Seekers Together), Safety 4 Sisters, and George House Trust (people with HIV). We also run workshops for people who are destitute and their supporters, and we advise people in prison and detention.We provide advice sessions within a number of agencies so as to provide confidential access to immigration advice. This is a key part of this post.

Refugee Family Reunion:

Since the cuts to legal aid in 2013 we have set up an innovative service which aims to make sure that refugees can bring their immediate family to the UK under the family reunion immigration rules. Each year this service reunites families who have been separated by persecution, war and conflict.

Children and Young People:

We provide advice and support to children and young people who are seeking protection in the UK and who are without parents or family members. We run a monthly ‘All 4 One’ group.

Families with No Recourse to Public Funds:

We work with families and local authorities to provide immigration advice and representation to resolve outstanding immigration matters that are preventing the family from becoming independent through the right to work or access benefits to which they are entitled.

ASHA:

We provide asylum support and housing advice to people who are destitute or at risk of destitution.

Training and Speakers

We also provide training and speak at public events to raise the issues that most affect the people we work with.

Current fundraising efforts

This year’s budget for GMIAU is £750,000. We hold two contracts for immigration legal advice – one with the Legal Aid Agency and one with Manchester City Council. The income from these sources is approximately 60% of our total income. The remainder comes from the support of charitable trusts and a much smaller amount from individual giving and donations. See our latest annual report for further details.

There are a wide range of individuals and agencies who support the work that we do but up until now it has been difficult to resource the efforts that will be needed to consolidate and to develop these relationships as part of GMIAU’s sustainability plan. This will be one of the priority areas for the post.

Current communication profile

We have some presence on social media, we have a website and we produce an annual report. We recognise that this is not sufficient and does not provide very much public information to anyone about the work that we do and what we achieve for people. Alongside the recruitment for this post there are considerable efforts being made to put together a comprehensive database suitable for managing all fundraising and communication tasks, and external relationships.

October 2016.