REFUGYM TRUSTEES' ANNUAL REPORT
1 April 2022 - 31 March 2023
CHARITY NAME:
REFUGYM
REGISTRATION NUMBER:
1181499
ADDRESS:
16 Claremont Close, Orpington, Kent, BR6 7AD
TRUSTEES:
Brittany Pummell – Chair (since 26th July 2020) Clara Shanabrook – Trustee (since 2nd April 2020)
Dr Sanaz Yaghmai – Trustee (since 18th June 2020) Shakiba Moghadam - Trustee (since 20th August 2021) Eva Oldenbuerger - Trustee (since 2nd October 2022)
REFUGYM STRUCTURE:
REFUGYM is a gym inside a refugee camp in Athens, Attica, Greece. The organisation aims to improve and promote the physical and mental well-being of asylum seekers residing in
the camp, through access to a sports programme. The camp residents are encouraged to take ownership of the programme, and the gym is led by the refugee community, for their own community.
REFUGYM operates in Athens, Greece. The Chair Brittany Pummell works full-time in Greece overseeing the running of the sports programme and supporting the camp resident volunteers, and is advised by all trustees on decision through regular meetings via online video platforms.
An example of minutes of such meetings can be found here: (August 2022) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1utoxb4xZ9AHrfXyFOwS5kd1Xd96sF_sqxt2ky5dNgs/edit?usp=sharing
TRUSTEES:
Trustees are recruited based on their merit; what experience they have that is relevant to sports, not- for-profit, mental health, immigration and finances.
Three trustees – Clara Shanabrook, Dr Sanaz Yaghmai and Eva Oldenbuerger – have direct experience in working with REFUGYM. All three trustees volunteered with REFUGYM in Malakasa Camp in 2019.
Clara began working with REFUGYM in 2018. Recognizing the undeniable need for REFUGYM’s work she returned as a Project for Peace Fellow in 2019 to expand REFUGYM’s programming. Her work with REFUGYM inspired her academic and professional work in asylum resettlement and immigration policy. Clara currently serves as REFUGYM’s grant writer.
Sanaz is a trauma-informed practitioner. Her previous career as a psychologist and ongoing passion for healing trauma led her to REFUGYM in 2019. She volunteered as a yoga teacher and trainer, and in 2020, joined the Board of Trustees. Sanaz offers refugee wellness services with the Afghan community in the USA.
Eva started working with REFUGYM in Malakasa Camp in 2019. As she is an experienced watersports instructor, she initiated and set up the windsurfing and SUP excursions, for which she won the Social Award of the Association of German Watersports School (VDWS). In addition, she wrote her MSc thesis in International Development Studies on participatory
dynamics in Malakasa camp and the role REFUGYM plays for the residents. Eva currently works for The Netherlands Institute of International Relations.
Shakiba is a sport psychology doctoral researcher, specialising in mental health in sports. Shakiba’s work is inspired and fueled by her own experience as a former refugee, having fled Iran as a child. She wants to provide the support she never had as a young refugee by committing her time and efforts to organisations who provide humanitarian aid to refugees and asylum seekers.
Shakiba and Sanaz are both native Farsi speakers: the language of the camp population REFUGYM works with. Brittany is a self-taught Farsi speaker.
ACTIVITIES:
REFUGYM is a refugee community-led gym in a refugee camp in Attica, Greece. We operate inside Malakasa Refugee Camp, within a permanent building that serves as our gym space.
Camp residents run the entire sports timetable, supported by Brittany Pummell.
Sports that camp residents are able to access include: aerobics, basketball, dance, football, gymnastics, HIIT, hiking, handball, Judo, kickboxing, Kung-Fu, self-defence, step-up, swimming, stand-up paddle boarding, volleyball, Wushu, yoga and Zumba.
REFUGYM also place an emphasis on running activities outside of the camp, in order to provide escapism from the monotony asylum seekers experience living in a refugee camp. Activities outside of the camp include hiking, professional basketball training, and watersports lessons. Brittany is an ASA qualified swimming instructor. REFUGYM partner with Tony Frey Windsurfing School in Athens to help facilitate swimming lessons and watersports, and AntetokounBros Academy in Athens that enrolls children from marginalised backgrounds, including those living in refugee camps, in a professional basketball training academy.
All outside activities are facilitated by Brittany.
OBJECTIVES:
REFUGYM has achieved its objective of establishing a community-led gym with and for Malakasa camp residents. The objective of creating a sustainable structure, that removes a
reliance for international volunteers and instead focuses on empowering the beneficiary population to run the activities themselves, has also been achieved.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
In a camp of 3,000 residents, we have approximately 1,000 sports participants every month, led by sports teachers from the refugee camp community.
The public benefit is that sports is scientifically proven to improve people's physical and mental well-being. Mental health is a particularly unaddressed need within refugee camps due to lack of psychologists and mental health professionals, and stagnant conditions in which asylum seekers are unable to progress with their lives.
Additionally, having an emphasis on sports activities outside the camp encourages social cohesion between the host and refugee populations, particularly with our partnerships with Tony Frey and Antetokounbros which encourage interaction with the Greek host community.
FINANCIAL REVIEW:
1st April 2022 - 31st March 2023
REFUGYM COOPERATIVE BUSINESS ACCOUNT – SORT CODE 08-92-99 – ACCOUNT NUMBER 65872066:
Incoming: £19,553.34 Outgoing: £11,868.18
PAYPAL ACCOUNT ATTACHED TO REFUGYM COOPERATIVE BUSINESS ACCOUNT (REGISTERED PAYPAL CHARITY ACCOUNT): Incoming: £13.31 Outgoing: £682.53
TOTAL COOPERATIVE ACCOUNT + PAYPAL ACCOUNT: Incoming: £19,566.65 Outgoing: £12,550.71
EXPENDITURE OUTSIDE THE UK: Country: Greece Outgoing: €9657.75
DEBTS: None.
DETAILS OF RESERVES POLICY:
Reserves are held in the Coop Bank & PayPal with a view to being used in the foreseeable future to support the Charity's Objectives.
DETAILS OF ANY FUNDS HELD AS A CUSTODIAN TRUSTEE:
Non applicable.
Incoming and outgoing of REFUGYM funds are tracked in this document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ = 1ZwHgVrr1hMWkbvjEoAahQ4N1a0wevlaKVk0q6WqF5G0/edit?usp drive_link
All receipts are accounted for in this folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JXvcfbvANSBcPWzy97GMmh9PIys1p2Md? = usp drive_link