African Women Empowerment Forum Joins Help2Fund

Built in Nottingham by refugee women, for refugee women. We are pleased to welcome the African Women Empowerment Forum to Help2Fund.

Who they are

AWEF was founded in 2006 by a group of African women in Nottingham who had been refugees and asylum seekers themselves. They looked at the support available to people arriving in the city, recognised most of its gaps from personal experience, and decided they could build something better.

Twenty years later they are still doing it, and the charity now supports refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and disadvantaged communities across Nottingham and the wider East Midlands.

What they run

The programme list is long, and that is not accidental. English language classes. Employability training. Entrepreneurship support for women starting something of their own. Digital inclusion work, which in 2026 is not optional for anyone dealing with the Home Office, a GP surgery or a job application. Mentoring. Health and wellbeing programmes. Mental health support. Domestic abuse awareness. Leadership development. Community integration work.

The breadth exists because the barriers do not arrive one at a time. A woman who cannot get a job because her English is not yet strong enough is usually also the woman who cannot navigate the NHS system, cannot access online services, and has no network in the city. Fixing one of those in isolation does not move her very far.

The number worth noticing

AWEF report an 88% completion rate on their English course. For a programme working with women who are simultaneously managing insecure housing, childcare, the asylum system and in many cases the aftermath of trauma, that is a serious figure. Adult education generally does not hold people at that rate, and courses aimed at this group frequently do far worse.

The likely explanation is not a better curriculum. It is that the people running it have been through the same thing and built the course around what actually gets in the way.

Where your money goes

A £2 donation provides educational resources, health information packs or transport assistance so that someone can physically get to a session.

A £5 donation covers materials and resources for a participant.

A £10 donation funds a health and wellbeing workshop, an employability session or a mentoring appointment.

A £20 donation supports a refugee or migrant woman to attend accredited training and receive one-to-one advice.

A £50 donation sponsors a participant through a full programme of training, wellbeing activities and community support.

You can donate on their Help2Fund page: help2fund.org/donations/african-women-empowerment-forum

Volunteering

AWEF welcome volunteers from all backgrounds. They need mentors, teachers, fundraisers, administrators, event support, community outreach, digital skills help and people to run wellbeing activities. A few hours a month is genuinely useful to them, and they will find something that fits what you can actually offer.

More about the charity at awefcharity.org.uk

About Help2Fund

Help2Fund is a free platform that gives small registered charities in England and Wales promotional support and fundraising infrastructure they would otherwise have to pay for. It is run by a team of volunteers, and the support is personalised to each charity rather than sold as a fixed package: some partners want social media content, some want a donation page, some want help telling a story they have never had the time to write down. Nothing is ever published without the charity signing it off first. In-person volunteering sessions with our partner charities are planned for the future.

The people who know exactly what is missing are usually the people who have been through it without it. AWEF is what happens when those people get to build the answer themselves, and then keep it running for two decades.