When a refugee arrives in the U.K., the first barrier is not just language. It is isolation. Since 1993, Lancashire-based NGO Global Link has built a bridge across that gap, evolving from a local development center into a national resettlement force.

Global Link operates on a simple belief: an inclusive Britain requires more than teaching refugees English. It requires social justice and conflict resolution, not just within refugee communities but across the U.K. as a whole.

Mission and Challenges

Global Link’s mission rests on three core strands: educating the general public on refugee matters, building cohesion between resettled and local populations in Lancashire and providing financial and advisory support to asylum seekers. Doing all of this comes with challenges. Asylum seekers may arrive from traumatic backgrounds or with no formal education, all while facing the constant threat of citizenship denial. Global Link then has roughly six months to begin teaching refugees English as a second language (ESL) before funded college classes become available.

Bridging the Language Gap

For newly arrived asylum seekers in Lancaster, access to English lessons is limited. Colleges often provide English classes through government-funded ESOL programs. However, many require asylum seekers to have lived in the U.K. for at least six months before becoming eligible. As a result, newly arrived asylum seekers frequently rely on charities and informal classes to learn English during that period.

Ryan Cove, a volunteer ESL teacher at Global Link, stated: “Global Link is one of the only places to offer ESL lessons to asylum seekers who have newly arrived.” With U.K. asylum policies becoming harsher and the required English level rising from B1 to B2, learning English quickly is more important than ever.

The curriculum prioritizes survival. Teachers run lessons on filling in asylum claims, registering with a GP, booking appointments by phone and reading prescription labels. The system aims to cover as many topics as possible and tailor them to specific needs; for instance, the process of getting medication from a pharmacy is broken down step by step.

For filling out asylum claims, Global Link works alongside another Lancaster charity, Refugee Advocacy, Information and Support (RAIS), which provides translation and advice. For more advanced students, lessons move on to job applications and business conversation skills. Cultural references create another layer of difficulty. Idioms, jokes and sayings can be difficult even for advanced ESL students. 

Learning Methods

While some refugees pick up English quickly through social media, others need graded language and visual support. Successful lessons are not always planned. As Cove noted about his students, Ukrainian refugees—mostly older women and mothers—responded best to cooking videos and discussions of travel. At the same time, local classes attended mainly by men from a range of nationalities engaged more with sport and food, allowing students to discuss their own cultures alongside their experiences in the U.K. Games also help.

There is no final exam for asylum seekers. When people arrive, their English levels vary widely depending on their home country and previous education. After six months, those with sufficient English proficiency become eligible for college classes. But success is measured individually: can the person use English in daily life? Can they see a doctor or get a job? 

This is why Global Link is such a valuable NGO: it does not judge success by a single exam but by meaningful progress that helps refugees move beyond mere survival.

National Integration Effort and Impact

Across the U.K., Global Link works to educate the wider public. These efforts take multiple forms, such as visits to institutions and open forums for refugee and local discussion. They also include simulations designed to give people in the U.K. a real understanding of the experiences of asylum seekers, such as Global Link’s “Escape to Safety” (E2S) exhibition.

This project is a tight labyrinth of rooms representing the difficulties and challenges that Iranian, Eritrean and Sudanese refugees—among others—face during the asylum-seeking process. Through its broad outreach, Global Link reached 64,000 people in 2025. Participants emerge from the labyrinth with a visceral understanding of what it means to flee home, wait months for decisions and navigate an unfamiliar system alone.

Nationally, the NGO offers a wide range of activities to bring communities together. These include sports tournaments, cooking classes where refugees and locals share family recipes, community agriculture projects and art workshops. Beyond this, it also offers workshops on critical skills such as driving and job-seeking. 

In 2025 alone, Global Link supported 410 refugees in their integration. In doing so, it creates more than just a development center; it creates a second home for refugees who would otherwise enter the U.K. completely isolated.

Conclusion

Global Link occupies a unique place in the U.K. that goes far beyond teaching refugees. It provides advanced, multi-layered ESL that addresses the challenges refugees face, supported by ongoing community-building for both locals and newcomers. As Cove puts it when describing why he decided to join Global Link, the work “lets you understand what they are going through on a personal basis… building a strong bond with an often neglected area of the community.” 

– Eli Thomson

Eli is based in Preston, UK and focuses on Good News and Politics for The Borgen Project. 

Photo: Flickr