About Warm Hut UK

Who we are

Warm Hut UK is a refugee-led charity based in Salford, working across Greater Manchester. We were founded in 2009 by people with lived experience of seeking refuge and who had themselves come through the asylum system, and we have been supporting people ever since. registered as a charity in 2010, we converted to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation in October 2023 (Registered Charity No. 1205109).

We work in French, Portuguese, Lingala, Swahili and English. For most of the people who come to us, that means the first conversation they have about their situation is in their own language, with someone who has been where they are. This build their confidence and trust, feeling much welcome. 

Who we are here for

We are here for people who are new to this country and to this city: people seeking asylum, refugees, people who have been refused and have no recourse to public funds, resettled families, and migrants navigating a system that was not designed to be understood from the outside.

Greater Manchester has strong organisations working on immigration cases. What has been missing is the everyday support that decides whether someone actually settles once the legal question is answered: a GP registration, a school place, a working boiler, a reason to leave the house. That is the gap we exist to fill.

What we do

Advice, casework and advocacy.
Multilingual advice on welfare, housing, health, education, employment and training, including help with forms, appeals and dealing with landlords, utilities and public bodies. We host free immigration clinics on our own premises, run fortnightly by solicitors we work in partnership with, so that people can get legal advice in a building they already trust.

Emotional wellbeing and counselling.
We provide counselling in-house, delivered by a qualified, BACP-registered practitioner, in the languages people speak, with no waiting list. Alongside this we run wellbeing activities built around the Five Ways to Wellbeing: cooking, keep fit, drumming therapy, conversation club, because for many people the route into support is an activity, not an appointment.

A place to be. 
Our warm space offers showers, laundry and ironing facilities, phone charging, hot food and company. It began as a winter provision. People using it told us that need does not stop in March, our board agreed, and it now runs Monday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm, all year round, staffed by volunteers. It also houses our Food club.

Practical help to set up a home. 
Securing settled accommodation, furnishing and equipping a new home, and resolving utility debt and energy costs. Our Energywise advisers hold City & Guilds Level 3 qualifications in energy awareness and income maximisation.

Families and early years. 
Our Early Years programme supports parents with children under five through Mentor Mothers, pregnancy workshops, home reading support, and cultural heritage sessions, in French, Portuguese and English.

Skills, digital inclusion and work. 
ICT and conversation clubs, our community sewing centre, and direct engagement with local employers to open up routes into work for people whose qualifications and experience are currently going unused.

Older people. 
For older members of our communities, and particularly those living with dementia, we provide befriending, home visits and companionship, and we raise awareness of dementia within African communities where it is often not spoken about.

Support after harm. 
We offer emotional and practical support to people affected by female genital mutilation, sexual violence, serious illness and hate crime. We are a designated hate crime reporting centre for Salford.

Led by the people we support

Warm Hut UK is not a service delivered to a community. It is run by it.

All four of our trustees have lived experience of seeking refuge. Of the 85 volunteers who gave more than 3,200 hours to the charity last year, 82% first came to us for support themselves. A focus group of people we support designs and delivers our activities, and learning circles set the themes of each year’s programme. People we support are invited into senior management and trustee meetings, not to be consulted after decisions are made, but to be in the room while they are.

The warm space opening year-round is one example of what that produces. It was not a management decision. It was asked for, argued for, and won by the people who use it.

Our impact

In the year to March 2026 we supported 678 individuals and families, ran more than 120 activities, worked with 18 partner organisations, and secured over £280,000 in financial gains for the people we advise.

Of those we supported:

• 89% told us they had better access to information and practical support
• 82% told us they felt less isolated
• 90% of older people told us they felt more able to live independently

Our aims

• To help people newly arrived in the UK meet the hardships of daily life here with confidence and information rather than fear.
• To provide advice, guidance and practical support across welfare, health, housing, education, employment and training, in the languages people actually speak.
• To reduce isolation and improve emotional wellbeing.
• To build on the skills, qualifications and experience people bring with them, so that they can use them here.
• To promote community cohesion and mutual respect, and to make the case for what newcomers contribute to this country.

Our reach and our recognition

We operate from St James’s House on Pendleton Way, our main office since 2020, and Cobden House community centre, where we have delivered since 2013. Both sites are secured on long leases and we hold 24-hour access to each. They are five minutes apart.

We are the Greater Manchester Ethnic Minorities Network Hub for Salford, a Sanctuary ambassador, and a designated hate crime reporting centre. Our trauma-informed practice is recognised by Salford City Council, with whom we have worked for 17 years on making Salford a City of Sanctuary.

Our mission

To stand alongside people who are new to the UK — in their language, with people who have made the same journey — so that they can meet the practical demands of daily life, recover their wellbeing, and use everything they already are.