Refugee Week Update January 2008

Happy New Year from the Refugee Week team! Let’s hope that 2008 turns out to be the biggest and most celebrated Refugee Week ever. This months update includes information about our upcoming UK Conference, an advertisement for our funky new calendar and highlights of interesting new projects.

News Bulletin

Refugee Week Update January 2008

Happy New Year from the Refugee Week team! Let’s hope that 2008 turns out to be the biggest and most celebrated Refugee Week ever. This months update includes information about our upcoming UK Conference, an advertisement for our funky new calendar and highlights of interesting new projects.

Refugee Week Conference 2008

A free one-day conference for anyone involved with Refugee Week

Friday 15th February 2008, 10:00 – 16:30

Venue: Human Rights Action Centre, Amnesty International, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London, EC2A 3EA

We would like to invite all those who have participated or are interested in Refugee Week to come to the one-day conference that we will be holding on 15th February in central London.

As part of the development of Refugee Week throughout the UK, we are committed to providing a forum where those involved in events can share their experiences and ideas with others. Specifically, the aims of the conference will be to provide participants with an opportunity to:

Celebrate their achievements with regards to Refugee Week
Learn from others about models of good practice
Input further into the future development of Refugee Week
Discuss issues of concern and future support needs
Make specific recommendations with regards to Refugee Week 2008
Enjoy themselves

The day will be very participatory and we hope that people will bring with them information and good examples of what they achieved this year. We will have some keynote speakers and a number of workshops / discussion sessions covering areas such as fundraising, working with the media, working in partnership and making changes through small actions. Conclusions or recommendations from the day will be recorded and shared with participants.

There is no charge for attendance, lunch will be provided and travel costs for members of Refugee Community Organisations can be met (reimbursement will be on a first come first served basis - please call 020 7346 6752 for further details).

If you would like to attend the workshop, we would be grateful if you could let us know as soon as possible and before February 1st 2008. Let us know by filling in this booking form and sending it to info@refugeeweek.org.uk with Conference as the subject title.

From Conflict to Safety Conference

Launch of the New Londoners 2007

Refugee Week 2008 Calendar

Show your support for Refugee Week all year round by getting hold of one of our 2008 calendars!

Made up of 12 full colour images of past Refugee Week events and including thoughts on Refugee Week from various celebrities and activists including Benjamin Zephaniah, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Colin Firth, Moira Buffini and Maryam Mursal, this desk top calendar is sure to keep Refugee Week on your mind each month.

The calendars cost £6.50 (including p&p). To order please download this order form and return it to us.

Audience member at Refugee Week Photo Competition exhibition 2007

Promote Refugee Week on the Big Screen

The BBC Big Screen Network is soon to be spread to 15 different cities across the UK.

The Big Screen Network is a series of huge screens (each twenty-five square metres) placed in prominent public places in major cities. Each screen is customised to reflect life in its host community with a broad range of local content

This project could be a great way to promote and show locally produced / relevant films and projects during Refugee Week 2008. The screen network does not accept ‘national’ campaigns, but is keen to host content with a more regional flavour per-site.

The screens are free to access and they operate as both a means of delivering film/digital media content and also as live event hubs in association with each respective city council.

For more information on how to get involved with visit the project visit the BBC big screen website www.bbc.co.uk/bigscreens

Flight Paths – Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph

The car park of Sainsbury’s supermarket in Richmond, southwest London, lies directly beneath one of the main flight paths into Heathrow Airport. Over the last decade, on at least five separate occasions, the bodies of young men have fallen from the sky and landed on or near this car park. All these men were stowaways on flights from the Indian subcontinent who had believed that they could find a way into the cargo hold of an airplane by climbing up into the airplane wheel shaft. No one can survive this journey.

“Flight Paths: a networked novel” seeks to explore what happens when lives collide – an airplane stowaway and the woman who witnesses his fall to earth. This project will tell their stories; it will be a work of digital fiction, a networked book, created on and through the internet. Writers Kate Pullinger (www.katepullinger.com ) and Chris Joseph (www.chrisjoseph.org ) encourage you to contribute your own stories, images, sounds, videos, memories, and ideas to this project.

Visit www.flightpaths.net to participate in a new kind of writing project that explores the themes of asylum and immigration, open to everyone, online.

Maryam Mursal performing at Celebrating Sanctuary London 2007