The Western Sahara Support Group is a charitable trust which aims to support projects in the Western Saharan refugee camps. The projects are inspired by the self-determined needs of the Sahrawi who will ultimately be responsible for delivering the outcomes. Our primary aim is to extend a hand of solidarity and friendship with a largely forgotten and dispossessed people.
The Summary
WSSG started in Manchester. We hosted groups of refugee children, back in 2000 and 2007, through The Woodcraft Folk Group* Then in 2008 a group of 5 adults and 5 children who had hosted Sahrawi children travelled to the camps. These children had touched our hearts and started a relationship which has grown over the years. We kept in touch through social media. One of these children was a bright, sparky girl who has grown into an intelligent, compassionate and driven woman fighting to improve conditions for her people. Fatimatu Bachir was born in Smara camp in 1991. She now has two children of her own (Aasma and Fatima) also born in the camps. In 2018 she contacted us with an idea that she had and that she needed our help with. She recognised the huge need for fresh vegetables and she knew that in nearby Tindouf they were grown successfully in large polytunnels to protect from the harsh weather. So she started to plan and research the possibilities and gathered a team of gardeners.
We were initially sceptical that it was possible to grow vegetables in these conditions and we asked her many, many questions. She consulted her team and market gardeners in the nearby town of Tindouf and came back with answers. With her team she wrote a project plan and costed it up. They called the project GROWING HOPE IN THE SAHRAWI REFUGEE CAMPS. Their aim was that if we helped them to get started they could become self-reliant and gradually increase the amount of polytunnels.
So the fundraising started – coffee mornings, auctions, dance nights, tea in the park.
On 20th August 2020 we became a Charitable Trust (Charity number: 1191126).
*The Woodcraft Folk is a youth organisation that welcomes all. With the motto “Span the World with Friendship” it holds the ideals of freedom, friendship, justice, unity and peace, teaching the next generations that we should all be treated fairly and work together to build a better future.
The Details
The connection between Levenshulme Woodcraft and the Sahrawi began in 2000 at a campsite in Anglesey when a group of young children came over
Later at Global Village (The Woodcraft Folk International Camp) in 2006 a group of adults camped with us. A favourite memory of this time was on a day trip to London when we went on an escalator and Gaboula (on the far right in the picture) was shrieking in astonishment as it moved! In 2007 Levenshulme Woodcraft Folk hosted a group of 8 children from the Sahrawi refugee camps near Tindouf in Algeria. To enable them to come over we raised money for flights, visas, and a programme of events including a weekend in Conwy. They stayed with 5 families in Levenshulme and Longsight for the first 2 weeks and then were welcomed by Birkenhead Woodcraft Folk who hosted them for the final two weeks of their month long stay in the UK.
Levenshulme Woodcraft Folk maintained links with the children and their families. The following year a group of 10 adults and children from Levenshulme Woodcraft were invited to visit them in the camps in the harsh Algerian desert.
During this visit bonds were made with the families and thanks to social media we have been able to keep in touch over the last ten years. All the children from Levenshulme and the camps have grown up and some now have own young families who will be the second generation born away from, and may never see, their homeland.
We have set up this charity to support the Sahrawi and to enable them to have as much independence and self-reliance as is possible in a refugee camp where you have no freedom of movement, no nationality, no right to a passport, no choices.
The WSSG is a governed by a board of trustees who aim to support a range of projects in the Western Saharan refugee camps by fundraising to make these initiatives become a reality. The projects are inspired by the self-determined needs of the Sahrawi who will ultimately be responsible for delivering the outcomes. The trustees oversee the use of funds and monitor and hold the projects to account to ensure value for money and best outcomes to benefit as wide a number of people as possible. Our overriding aim is to extend a hand of solidarity and friendship with a largely forgotten and dispossessed people.
