PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release: Tuesday 1 November 2022
This month, the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC) will celebrate a milestone anniversary, as it marks ten years of defending children’s citizenship rights.
Founded in November 2012, by solicitor and CEO Solange Valdez-Symonds, PRCBC is the first and only organisation working solely to support children and young adults in their rights to British citizenship.
Since then, PRCBC has gone on to support thousands of children across the UK through its pro bono casework and campaign work against unjust policy and practice that deny children their citizenship.
Earlier this year, PRCBC successfully secured a waiver to the £1,012 child citizenship fee the Home Office charges for registration as a British citizen. After PRCBC’s long legal challenge and campaigning for many years, in May the Home Office introduced a waiver for all children who cannot afford the fee to apply for and exempted all children in the care system from the fee.
Solange Valdez-Symonds, CEO, and solicitor at PRCBC, said:
“PRCBC was set up in 2012 to promote and fight for the rights of children unfairly discriminated against by the Home Office’s profound failure to respect British nationality law.
“During this time, through our legal advice and campaigning efforts, we have supported thousands of children and young people to secure their British citizenship.
“As we look forward to the next decade, we remain steadfast in our commitment to children and their families. For as long as British children continue to be excluded and alienated, PRCBC will help them fight for their rights.”
To mark its decade of work, PRCBC is launching a new information booklet for children, parents and carers who need support navigating the complexities of the citizenship system. The booklet features illustrations by children’s illustrator and former laureate, Chris Riddell; and a foreword from the poet and author, Benjamin Zephaniah.
This booklet is available in pdf HERE
Further information from media@prcbc.net