Info Centre > Facts about Refugees
Facts about Refugees
There is so much misinformation circulating about refugees and asylum seekers in the media that it is sometimes hard to work out what is reality and what is myth. Here you’ll find a friendly bunch of resources that can help you to figure out the facts from the fibs.
This comprehensive pack gives you the basics facts about refugees in the UK; the latest asylum facts and figures, the key issues facing asylum seekers and refugees as well as additional resources.
Refugees have made a massive cultural, social and economic contribution to life in the UK in the last 450 years. Many famous household names are evidence of the presence of refugees: Camille Pisarro, Sigmund Freud, Frank Auerback and Arthur Koestler to name but a few. This pack contains a timeline of refugees in the UK and their contributions.
Beyond the media myths and stereotypes are real people who overcome barriers and achieve great things. Here we introduce the people instad of the statistics.
This credit card shaped leaflet is pocket sized and full of up to date facts regarding the contribution of refugees to the UK today. This is quite a large file so will take a few minutes to open.
The Refugee Awareness Project has produced this two wonderful myth-busting pocket guides:
This pocket guide aims to put information at people’s fingertips so they can influence others. This one's full of easy ways to welcome refugees and asylum seekers.
For real copies email nationalrap@refugee-action.org.uk or call 020 7654 0673. Or buy online in the RAP shop at www.refugee-action.org.uk/RAP/RAPshop.aspx
A lot of rubbish is talked about asylum. The same old myths and scare stories are peddled again and again. The truth is in short supply. This leaflet, produced by the Refugee Council, lists these facts and figures that you can rely on. For more information visit www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/practice/
Fair Play – A guide for Journalists The media has a major role to play in our multi-cultural society. It also has certain duties in ensuring responsible reporting on issues of asylum, refugees and immigration. This updated guide is one of a series of publications which goes a long way towards enabling journalists to cover the issue of refugees and asylum seekers in a balanced and truthful manner. Produced by Oxfam.
Individually and collectively, we need to work out how to live on this planet. Any human being who imagines a better tomorrow becomes a refugee from the present, longing to arrive at a more beautiful future. This is the pulse that beats in our blood as human beings. The primal drive to set out for a place of security: this was the howl of the wind in Odysseus’s sails and the creak of the timber in Noah’s ark. It was the crunch of the gravel under the sandals of Moses’ followers as they crossed the dry bed of the Red Sea.
Those sounds are no quieter today for the fact that our modern journey to refuge as a species must be led by scientists and social reformers rather than by bearded men with ocean-parting powers. We are all the offspring of refugees. We are the biological descendents of those who fled from danger, and thus survived. We are an adaptable species, and our survival comes from our ability to imagine a condition of refuge, and to set out for it. We are all, as I’m sure Noah once remarked, in the same boat.
Chris Cleave Novelist
