Thanks to everyone who took part in Refugee Week 2009 and helped make it the biggest and most diverse Refugee Week ever!
Refugee Week 2010 takes place 14 – 20 June!
London will again be celebrating with a fantastic range of exciting and diverse events throughout the city, ranging from community events to football tournaments and from big music festivals to art installations.
Be prepared by taking a look at some of the great resources available to help you organise your events and celebrate the contribution of refugees!
More information for Event Organisers
What’s happening between now and next Refugee Week?
We are encouraging events organisers to join in on Simple Acts.
Simple Acts is about inspiring people to use small, everyday actions to change perceptions of refugees.
It consists of 20 actions that can be done by anyone and that encourage us to learn and do more with refugees. With every person who joins the campaign and does a small thing with and for refugees, we get a little closer to removing barriers between communities and to creating the kind of world we all want to live in.
We believe that by encouraging lots of people to do these simple, seemingly insignificant acts – read a book, tell a story or share a dish – we can begin to make lasting changes to the world around us.
Find out more about getting involved by visiting www.simpleacts.org.uk
Remember to check the Events Calendar
There is loads of cool stuff going on throughout the year for Refugee Week. Keep checking the Events Calendar for a full list of events...
Check out the Events Calendar
Look at some of the exciting events that took pace in 2009
Celebrating Sanctuary London
Celebrating Sanctuary is a day long festival which gathers together established and emerging refugee musicians, dancers and artists to celebrate the positive cultural contribution of refugees to the UK.
Hosted by DJ Ritu from BBC London 94.9 FM, this year's Celebrating Sanctuary features the wild Serbian Roma Indie Rockers KAL and prejudice-busting UK Hip-Hop act Poetic Pilgrimage.
The festival also showcases the talent of the future with many young dance troops and the singing pupils from Charles Dickens School who join forces with Bosnian singer Tea Hodzic and her trio.
Celebrating Sanctuary also introduces the Spoken Word stage in partnership with Book Slam, featuring cutting-edge literature and acoustic music presented by award-winning novelist Patrick Neate.
There will be a multitude of stalls selling mouth-watering dishes and thirst quenching drinks from all over the world; a dedicated dance stage; workshops and activities for children; and information stalls from Refugee Week, its partner agencies and others in the Festival Marketplace; as well as a chance to join the Simple Acts campaign to help remove prejudice against refugees.
For more information about Celebrating Sanctuary 2009 please visit www.myspace.com/celebratingsanctuary
Refuge in Films Festival 09
19-21 of June at the BFI Southbank
For the third year running, Nueva Generation and RefugeeYouth present The Refuge in Films festival at the BFI Southbank. Refuge in Films 09 is dedicated to raising awareness about refugee and migrant issues. In 2009, the festival is being entirely developed by a group of young people. By giving a voice to young refugees, the festival will address issues of representation of refugees and migrants in the film industry and will be a space of celebration, contributing to a more tolerant society.
Refuge in films 09 also includes a Film Challenge in which young people produced short films about immigration and refuge in collaboration with professional filmmakers and Grain Media.In addition RefugeeYouth will be launching “Becoming a Londoner” a new book written by young people, about their own experiences on making London their new home. Dance and music performances will create a night in which young people form different communities in London will get together to share and celebrate their diversity.
Refuge in Films Programme
Recipe for Life
June 17 to July 4, at the Oval House Theatre, 52-54 Kennington Oval, London SE11 5SW.
Art about identity and values Art for learning Art for expression
Art and human rights Art for positive images
An exhibition of art-work created by young people in Lambeth with a range of innovative work made from all kinds of materials.
What is in your Recipe for Life?
Family? A safe place to live? Love? The right to speak your mind? Respect from others? Understanding and learning about different cultures? Free education?
Come and visit the exhibition and give your opinion and support the creative contributions of young people.
GHOSTS: Artists Deface Each Others’ Work
12 – 25 June at the Cello Factory, 33,-34,Cornwall Road, Waterloo, SE1 8TJ
Four artists, a composer and a film maker have defaced each others’ work in GHOSTS, a show inspired by Rauschenberg’s celebrated erasure of a De Kooning drawing, (1953). This challenge to the sanctity of art will be at London’s new visual arts venue, The Cello Factory, Waterloo from 12 – 25 June, 2009.
Susan Haire, Mark Dickens, Francesca Simon, Gillian Cutbill and Bernard Mordan, will be joined by New York composer, Stephen Dydo for the exhibition. Haire’s and Simon’s ghostly images will reveal traces of each others’ work as will those of Dickens (recently joined Waterhouse and Dodd) and Cutbill.
The prize winning artists have pieces in many corporate and private collections and show and perform regularly in international venues. This is their first collaboration.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue and a cd of Bernard Mordan’s film and Stephen Dydo’s music. The Refugee Council will be participating in workshops in the exhibition to mark Refugee Week.
For a full listing of events in London visit the Events Calendar
If you would like general information regarding Refugee Week in Greater London please contact us at info@refugeeweek.org.uk or on 020 7346 6752
