It’s Refugee Week (17th June-23rd June), the world’s largest arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Established in 1998 in the UK, this annual festival aligns with World Refugee Day, celebrated globally on 20th June. The theme this year is ‘Our Home’: from the places we gather to share meals to our collective home, planet earth: everyone is invited to celebrate what ‘Our Home’ means to them.
To mark and celebrate Refugee Week, our EmbRace EDI Network are hosting a colleague virtual event on Wednesday 19th June, 11am-midday. This is part of the network’s ongoing commitment to bring various ethnic communities' culture and experiences to our colleagues.
They'll open the event with colleague, Mohammed Adeel, Employment Advisor - Refugee Employability Programme (REP), Employment Advisor, Refugee Employability Programme (REP), who’ll share their experience of arriving to the UK as a refugee.
Their guest speaker Erinma Bell, who has extensive experience supporting migrant families and connecting communities, will deliver a presentation on the imminent needs of refugees on arrival, trauma informed practice and dynamic ways to support refugees into education, employment and entrepreneurship. Learn more about Erinma here.
Throughout the session, they'll feature colleague and client stories to reflect the diversity of experiences within the refugee community, with a message from EmbRace SMT Sponsor, Michelle Leeson.
Attend if:
- Your work involves supporting diverse ethnic communities
- You want to learn more about the unique challenges faced by refugees
- You want to understand more about the refugee experience
We hope to see you there – the calendar invite has already been published to colleagues. In the meantime, you can take a look at the Refugee Week’s Social Media Kit here – which includes content and assets which you can share.
Would you like to share your story?
We’d like to source videos from colleagues, participants, and clients to highlight the theme this year of Refugee Week: Our Home. The videos will be used to make a collage as part of GC’s external marketing, and will be included with this virtual event.
In the video, we’d love you to answer the following questions:
- What’s your country of origin?
- What were the major challenges on arrival?
- What support was the most beneficial?
- What advice would you give to colleagues supporting refugees in their role?
- What makes the UK feel like home?
Click here to find out more, including how and where to send your videos.