These are the words of John, a solicitor with Coventry Building Society, who has recently signed up to mentor Abdullah, a Syrian refugee on World Jewish Relief’s Specialist Training and Employment Programme (STEP). The Mentorship scheme is run in partnership with Business In The Community.

Two years ago, we made a short film about a Syrian refugee named Baraa who we had helped into employment with Timpson the cobblers. Baraa's optimism, dedication and cheeky personality captured all of our hearts. For Refugee Week 2020 we caught up with him to see how we was coping during Covid 19.

On arrival in the UK, Nadia spoke no English and believed her only hope for employment was working as a cleaner. Until she joined World Jewish Relief’s Specialist Training and Employment Programme (STEP) where over a number of years, through our partner Horton Housing, we have been helping her with guidance, funding and other support, to gain the qualifications she needs to work in her profession again.

Throughout the Coronavirus crisis, 22 year old Juman has been a frontline supermarket worker, helping the country via her role on the shop floor of Marks and Spencer’s food department in Coventry. World Jewish Relief helped her get the job. This is her story.

This week is Refugee Week, an important moment to reflect and act on the world’s 70 million people who are displaced from their homes. Unlike Baraa, the majority remain displaced by conflict within their country of origin or remain precariously housed in neighbouring states, split up from their family, with no right to work, living off meagre handouts and vulnerable to Covid 19 and the scourge of poverty.

The Young World Jewish Relief Committee are constantly amazed and inspired by the work that world Jewish Relief does across the world. We know that COVID-19 has had a huge global impact and that the charity sector in particular has been hit badly.

As the global Covid-19 pandemic extends it's deadly tentacles around the world, we are working with our brilliant local partners to get aid and awareness to where it's most needed - from conflict zones to crowded refugee camps. Each of our partners has specific areas of expertise which we have utilised to be as effective as possible in mitigating against the spread of this disease.

Mozambique has been having a tough year. First battered by Cyclone Idai in March 2019 - the worst tropical storm to hit southern Africa on record - leaving 1.8m people in need of humanitarian assistance, and then being swamped by severe flooding in December 2019 affecting 71,000 people.

At this time of great uncertainty it is amazing to see the way communities are reaching out to their most vulnerable members to help keep them safe or make sure they have everything they need. It reminds me of how my family gathered around my Grandma Nita when she was diagnosed with dementia.