refugee week is an annual celebration of the lives, perspectives and creative contributions of the uk’s refugee community. We take a look at what the week involves, how you can get involved, and how to support Refugee communities more generally throughout the year.

refugee week 2022

Refugee Week is a UK based umbrella-festival that brings together a number of events and activities in celebration of the stories, resilience and contributions of Refugees in the UK. It’s celebrated during the week of World Refugee Day (20th of June), and is happening this year from 20th-26th of June.

The festival programme involves art, culture and educational activities such as music performances, art exhibitions, panel talks, film screenings, school-led initiatives, and so on. As an umbrella festival, Refugee Week aims to remove any barriers to inclusion and leave itself open to participation by anyone. As a result, it hopes to capture the vastly different identities, histories and lived experiences of Refugees and Asylum Seekers across the UK.

Why is Refugee Week important?

Refugees and their experiences are largely misunderstood in the UK. With human rights and immigration becoming increasingly entangled in political debates and media headlines, often the realities of the Refugee experience are lost.

By reflecting on this through a creative lens, the festival looks to encourage an understanding of how and why people become displaced and the challenges they face when trying to find safety, as well as highlighting the value and contribution of the many individuals who make up the UK’s Refugee community.

The theme for this year’s Refugee Week is Healing, with the majority of events and activities encompassing this.

What’s on in refugee week?

There’s so many exciting events coming up over Refugee Week; here’s a few of our London-based favourites.

18th June: Screening of ‘Mr Gay Syria’ at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery.

Celebrating the intersection of Refugee Week and Pride Month, Mr. Gay Syria follows two gay Refugees from Syria who are trying to rebuild their lives. After viewing the film, there will be a panel discussion and guests will get to eat traditional Syrian food.

You can buy tickets here.

24th June: No Direction Home: Stand Up Comedy Evening at the National Maritime Museum

The No Direction Home Comedy Collective performs an evening of stand-up comedy in celebration of Refugee Week, featuring new stand-ups from refugee and migrant backgrounds.

You can buy tickets here.

25th June: Play for Progress Pop Up Performance at the V&A

Play for Progress is a collective using music, the arts, play and creative therapies to create healing experiences. In this pop up performance, they’ll be amplifying the resilient voices of unaccompanied young people seeking asylum around the world.

Find out more about this and other V&A events here.

Volunteering to support Refugees

Outside of this week, there’s lots of other ways that you can support Refugees and Asylum Seekers. At Matchable, we’re incredibly proud to partner with organisations throughout the UK who work to support and empower Refugees; helping them to integrate meaningfully into their new communities, to overcome the trauma of being displaced, and to find new purpose and fulfilment in the UK.

We recently partnered with Refugee Youth Service to support their work helping displaced children and young people to re-start and rebuild their lives through employee volunteering. Their work focuses mainly in Athens and Calais, where they support local organisations providing direct support to displaced children and young people. Recently, they’ve also launched a training course in the UK to improve the care and reception of unaccompanied children arriving in the UK.

Other organisations that we support include NEMI Teas, Relinkt and Fairbeats. You can read more about them here.

If you’re a client of Matchable - head to the matchable platform now to have a look at how you can help these amazing organisations!

ABOUT MATCHABLE

At Matchable we work with companies and their employees to match them with high impact and innovative skilled volunteering projects at non-profits and impact startups.

If you’re interested in finding out more about how your employees can upskill through our social impact projects, get in touch here.

Refugee Week 2022

refugee week is an annual celebration of the lives, perspectives and creative contributions of the uk’s refugee community. We take a look at what the week involves, how you can get involved, and how to support Refugee communities more generally throughout the year.