"When I came here I thought all was lost but with the help and therapy, they helped me believe in myself again."
 One of Baobab’s Young Survivors

 "These young people need long term treatment. They will have been victims of violence, some of them forced to be perpetrators of violence – forced to be child soldiers."
Sheila Melzak, Clinical Director, the Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile

                                                                                                                                            Photo: Mikhail Evstafiev

4,000 children and young people arrive unaccompanied in the UK each year to seek asylum. Many are fleeing violence, having experienced unimaginably painful events.

The Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile is a therapeutic centre solely focused on the needs of these young people.  Those we work with have experienced humiliation, perverse violence, trafficking and violation during their developmental years.  Coerced into witnessing violent acts, some will also have been perpetrators.  Most will have lost parents and extended family through appalling acts of brutality.

Such profoundly disturbing losses - of family, youth, home and emotional stability - create long-lasting trauma.

The Baobab Centre works with these young people to provide a long-term, specialised service, focused on therapy and practical support.  With help, their shattered lives can be rebuilt.