Once a year, every year, Amnesty International and a whole host of other organisations get together to celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK. It’s important we celebrate the concept of sanctuary and fully recognise the significant cultural, social and economical role that asylum seekers and refugees play in their country of refuge. The aim of the week is to foster cross-community understanding and to demystify some of the common misconceptions about refugees.
This year we’ll start celebrating on the 15th and there’s plenty you can do to get involved.
Take Action
From reading a book about exile, to cooking a meal from another cuisine or inviting a refugee round for a cup of tea: There’s many small things we can all do to change the perception of refugees within the UK. Head over to the Simple Acts campaign and find a little thing that you can do to make the UK a better place for everyone.
There’s also a lot we need to do to ensure our Government starts to treat refugees and asylum seekers in a fair and humane way. Failed asylum seekers in particular are often left destitute, with no support, and forced to return to countries where they have already faced persecution and violence. You can help these individuals by emailing your MP now.
Attend an Event
A big part of Refugee Week is about celebrating, and a great way to do this is by heading to a rally, going to an art exhibition or attending one of the many other diverse events that are being organised across the country. You can find a full list of events in your area here, but check out our map for some highlights.
View Refugee Week Events in a larger map
If you’re in London you can also buy tickets for The Container, a play about asylum and persecution. Performed to just 28 audience members, all locked inside a shipping container, it provides the vivid experience asylum seekers must endure to reach our country. It’s showing at The Young Vic in association with Amnesty International from the 15th July.
Take part online
If you can’t make it to any events, there’s plenty more you can do online to get involved. Here are just a few options…
- Follow AmnestyUK and Simple_Acts on Twitter for all the latest news throughout the week
- Join the Simple Acts campaign on Facebook
- Read a blog about UK asylum seekers and refugees
- Tell us what the word ‘refuge’ means to you. Loads of people have already done this, you’ll find one of them in the video below, and a bunch of others on Wordia.
In Birmingham we have our Celebrating Sanctuary Festival tomorrow. The local Amnesty group will have a stall there. Keep an eye on our blog for photos and feedback of the day http://www.amnestybham.wordpress.com
This week Oxfam and their partners are making a special effort to celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK through a series of events up and down the country.
As part of this the UK Poverty Post will be publishing some specially commissioned blogs in support of Refugee Week.
Today they begin with a post from Krisnah Poinasamy who talks about what a refugee is, previews some of the events taking place this week and outlines why Oxfam works with refugees.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/ukpp/2009/06/krisnah_poinasamy_mar_ha_ba_1.html
Check out Krisnah’s post and add your comments. Don’t forget to keep looking throughout the week for posts about the Still Human Still Here campaign, refugees living in destitution, the refugee media awards, the contribution refugees have made to British culture and much more!
we need to promote this cause especially in the North East I feel where racism is rife.