Baca

Baca is an award winning charity working across the Leicestershire, Cambridgeshire and the West Midlands, providing specialist support for unaccompanied asylum seeking children. They won a prestigious Centre for Social Justice Award in 2014, which was presented by the then Home Secretary, Rt Hon Theresa May MP. Their dedicated team create a supportive environment for young people to develop and grow. They have countless success stories of young people coming to Baca with trauma and a lack of trust. Leaving their care with hope for the future.

The nature of the work they do means that photographs of young people can’t be shown. Instead we used an illustrative approach to depict the mission and ethos of Baca.

Initially a dozen eggs were asked to build a portal to hold an online course, written by Baca, to equip tutors with activities when teaching pre-ESOL english, and to produce a new website. As time has gone on we’ve continued to work with Baca, finding the most effective ways to communicate their expertise and support ethos. Strands portrays the interactions between the different elements of a young asylum seeker’s life once they arrive at Baca, and the Theory of Change is a comprehensive overview of helping them achieve long-term economic independence and stability. Both of these are utilised in Baca’s work with a network of services, influencing policy and strategy at a national level. The Theory of Change has been included within a home office report.

When constructing the website we had to take multiple audiences into account.  As well as the groups who take part in sheltering asylum seekers there are interest groups and of course the asylum seekers themselves, most of whom understood only minimal English.  This made illustration a really important tool for us, creating scenes that illuminated the written content, and gave even casual viewers a sense of what Baca offers.