About Gulab Sorkh
We want the Afghans we work with to settle into the UK as quickly as possible and maximise their potential. By doing so, they will become fully contributing members of UK society. We help them with their basic needs when they arrive in the UK, advise them on the British way of life, help them steer their way through the bureaucracy and access services and signpost educational and vocational training opportunities for them.
Our story
We are British Armed Forces veterans who worked with or had other links with a number of Afghan security forces units in the 20 years that led up to Operation Pitting, the UK airlift of evacuees from Kabul in August 2021.
Getting people to the UK or other safe countries was just the first step.
There has been an enormous amount of good work since then by charities, the government, local authorities and individuals to help them as they arrived and continue to arrive.
We resolved to ‘think beyond the first six months’ to help our Afghan friends settle into UK society and provide them with opportunities that their sudden move from their home country denied them. We have focused on helping them with their immediate needs, encourage good citizenship and help them access educational and vocational training opportunities.
We believe this to be a twenty-year project.
Our vision
Our vision is for our families to be successfully housed, gainfully employed and integrated into British society and within their local neighbourhood. We are here to ensure they know what services are available to them and that they have fair access to them.
Our mission
Our mission is to ensure our Afghan families have the knowledge and tools to be self-sufficient and living fulfilled lives within the UK. The difference we want to make is derived from the charitable objects in our constitution that underpin our charity, which includes but is not limited to:
Educate
Our Afghan friends will have greater knowledge, opportunities, skills and experience through their engagement with us increasing their capacity to lead a fulfilled life.
Empower
Enable our people to become self-sufficient and independent, no longer reliant on our support and confident tax contributors.
Enrich
Signpost and provide access to growing community links prompting a greater sense of belonging and pride and promoting good citizenship.
Engage
Work in partnership with central and local government, other charities and the private sector in order to achieve greater outcomes.
Principles and values
The organisation operates with the following principles and values:
Relationship building is at the heart of what we do regardless of the audience; beneficiaries, donors and decision-makers.
Honesty, transparency and integrity enable us to manage our Afghans’ expectations.
Facilitating our families’ ability in the long term to be self-sufficient is key.
Being focussed yet agile enables us to be active, responsive, resilient and a leader within our sector. In turn this allows us to meet the needs and beyond of the specific Afghan community that we serve.
Our people
Chair
Our chair is a former Army officer and school teacher. She lives in the West of England and we benefit from her energy and broad experience, particularly of the needs of vulnerable women and children, safeguarding and guiding the board of trustees in their work.
Trustee
This trustee had a long and distinguished career in Regular Army units that worked most closely with our Afghan beneficiaries. He is now an active Reservist who owns and runs a company that specialises in delivering educational and vocational training opportunities.
Trustee
This trustee is a former senior officer who served in the Regular Army for 27 years and the Reserves since 2015. He has considerable experience of managing the governance of military charities and has close links to Defence industry.
Trustee
This trustee was the commanding officer of a Regular Army unit that worked most closely with our Afghan opportunities. In the days following Op Pitting, he and his family were shuttling around the country delivering clothes, toys, and other essentials to Afghan arrivals in the UK. Latterly, he has played a key role in promoting their case to Parliamentarians and Peers.
Trustee
This trustee is a former Regular Army unit commanding officer who has managed an educational charity and, as the former bursar of a well-known independent school, brings a keen eye for good financial governance.
Operations Director
We are proud to have an operations director who has delivered more benefit to our Afghan evacuees than perhaps anyone else in the country. Her network of contacts with Afghans is unparalleled and the envy of a number of Government departments, who depend on her for ‘ground truth’. She has provided straight advice and comfort to thousands of Afghans, many of whom are now happily settled in permanent accommodation around the UK.
