Supporting the local community sector has been a long-standing aim for RentLondonFlat as a company, and also for individual staff members. This has been exemplified in this latest achievement for Refguees Welcome Hounslow, a volunteer group for which RentLondonFlat Projects and Operations Manager Alavari Jeevathol serves on the Executive Committee. Refugees Welcome Hounslow received the “Community Heart Award” and “One Hounslow Spirit Award”, in this the first ever year for the One Hounslow Community awards from Hounslow Council.

Apart from giving up his free time to work with Refugees Welcome Hounslow over the past 4 years, Jeevathol pointed to the direct ways that RentLondonFlat has helped the refugee and asylum seeker arrivals: “We have over the years been able to donate laptops and mobile phones to the families and individuals from Syria and other war-torn parts of the world who have come to find a new home and a new life in London.”

Jeevathol continued: “As well as being in a position to directly help arrivals with items they need and are lacking in the benefits they receive from the government, I have, thanks to the supportive management team and flexible working style at RentLondonFlat, been able to give over a good portion of my time outside of work to Refugees Welcome Hounslow.”

“I am certainly just a small member of a fantastic committee that has fully deserved this award, particularly Rachel Tanner our volunteer coordinator and Shelagh Allsop our chairperson, who were singled out for special recognition at the awards.”

Speaking to the way that his experience working with RentLondonFlat helped him contribute to Refugees Welcome Hounslow, Jeevathol remarked: “It just so happens that many of the operational challenges we faced and were able to overcome in running a property agency, are mirrored in sourcing properties for refugee households arriving through government schemes, working with landlords who wish to rent to refugees in particular, and guiding refugees and landlords both through tenancies.”

Following in Jeevathol’s path, another member of the RentLondonFlat team – Fathy Nekheli is now also looking to volunteer his free time with Refugees Welcome Hounslow.

“That is truly heartening to see,” Jeevathol commented. “I am extremely pleased to be joined by my colleague Fathy in contributing to refugee support offered by Refugees Welcome Hounslow. His being a native Arabic speaker will be enormously useful in guiding the newly-arrived Syrian people we support in accessing local services such as banks, healthcare, and also in tenancy and property management. We will continue to epitomise RentLondonFlat’s ethos of giving back to the local community wherever possible in our work with the refugees and asylum seekers over the next year and beyond.”