About the Welsh Refugee Council#
The Welsh Refugee Council was founded in 1990, on the day Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, by refugees, politicians, community groups and public bodies. It now has teams in Cardiff, Newport, Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Wrexham, and says 80% of its sanctuary service team have been through the asylum process themselves. It also runs English classes, a children's play project and employment programmes with employers, and hosts Wales's Nation of Sanctuary Awards.
Its services, and who each one is for#
| Service | Who it is for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Wales Sanctuary Service | People seeking asylum: housing, asylum support, health, legal representation, the asylum registration card | All 22 local authorities in Wales, funded by the Welsh Government with partner charities |
| Move On Service | Newly granted refugees: National Insurance number, Universal Credit, housing, and checking documentation | Cardiff, Newport and Swansea |
| Single Advice Service | People with a migration background past the first weeks after a grant, including family reunion arrivals and people with settled status | Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan |
| eVisa support | Anyone in Wales needing help to create a UKVI account and reach their eVisa | Wales |
Family reunion and tracing questions are passed to the British Red Cross.
Making an appointment#
This is an appointment service, not a drop-in. The I need advice page links to online booking for each office, or you can book through its freephone. Its pages give two slightly different sets of opening hours, so check the offices page before you travel. The eVisa service has its own booking link and email address. The site has sections in Welsh, Arabic, Pashto, Kurdish, Tigrinya, Ukrainian and other languages, and its sanctuary service worked with people speaking 57 languages in nine months of 2024.
eVisas, documents and names#
Nothing on the site covers changing your name. What it does publish is closely related. Its eVisa programme, funded by the Home Office, helped 3,708 people from 101 countries move from residence permit cards to eVisas in 2024-25, according to its impact report, which also quotes a client whose eVisa data errors were put right after the charity escalated them. Its eVisa page says the passport or national ID card recorded in your UKVI account must always be the current one, that each child needs an account of their own, and that a Home Office travel document cannot be used to create an account.
Those points shape any change of name. The eVisa follows the identity document recorded in your account, so for most people the order is: change the name with your own country's authorities, then update the UKVI account. The exception, in the Home Office's guidance on names, is for people whose protection means they cannot turn to their own state, such as recognised refugees. They can apply for the eVisa change with a deed poll and other evidence instead of a passport, and lose any travel document still showing the earlier name.
Reading further#
Changing your name in Wales explains that Wales shares the law of England and that GOV.UK publishes its guidance in Welsh, your eVisa and UKVI account walks through the update, and changing a name from another language explains how a name in another alphabet becomes a British spelling. Ask a registered immigration adviser before you change a name that appears on a Home Office record.
This page describes what the Welsh Refugee Council publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. The Welsh Refugee Council has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
