About
Our name is derived from the Nguni Bantu term meaning "I am because we are", and we use the word ‘shelter’ as a verb – thus no apostrophe. We are a Black feminist organisation led ‘by and for’ women who have experienced the injustice and violence of border regimes. We provide unconditional practical support for destitute women and people of other marginalised genders who have no recourse to public funds and insecure immigration status in Scotland.
Our History
Like all life-affirming and sustaining ideas, Ubuntu was conceived around a kitchen table. An examination as to why there was no designated shelter for women with no recourse to public funds and unclear immigration status was conducted by a group of friends around a pot of hot curry and rice. To learn more about our story so far read our Biennial Report
Our Values
We are a woman*-centred feminist organization ‘led by and for’ women and people of other marginalised genders who have experienced the injustice and violence of border regimes
We provide practical support and offer unconditional support for destitute women and people of other marginalised genders who have no recourse to public funds (NRPF) and insecure immigration status in Scotland
We challenge and resist policy and institutional practices that perpetuate disbelief, deny and erase the continuing harm and trauma of slavery and colonization
We stand witness to the continuing state violence against women and people of other marginalised genders with NRPF through the structural denial of their human rights to work, education, safe housing, autonomy and dignity
We redirect, disrupt, and destabilize material flows that legitimize the extraction of economic value from women and people of other marginalised genders with NRPF, as reparations for historical harms and trauma
Woman* unequivocally includes all self-identifying women. No law or policing can tell us who we will have as guests, or who we will treat with dignity and respect. We will not be passive while institutions across the country allow privileged white ‘feminists’ to create hostile environments for our trans sisters. They want segregation of women’s services, but we already know that segregation is just a means for the state to justify their selective austerity, cutting off vital resources to the partition of women who they fear will erode white cis-male entitlement to our bodies. Cut one of us, and we all bleed. There will never be policing of women’s bodies in our spaces. Never will we put red tape between each other. Our spaces are for the autonomy of all women fighting patriarchal violence. They will try to dehumanise us and crush our very sense of self because they fear us. Do not let them. Trans women and gender minorities are crucial in our fight. Together, we are stronger than their hate. You are always welcome among us.