Refugee Week 2022 is 20 – 26 June. We invite you to get involved!

Refugee Week is an umbrella festival, and anyone can get involved by holding or joining an event or activity. Refugee Week events happen in all kinds of different spaces and range from arts festivals, exhibitions, film screenings and museum tours to football tournaments, public talks and activities in schools.

This Refugee Week, we’re inviting you to explore the theme of ‘Healing’. Through creativity and conversations, Refugee Week 2022 will be a celebration of community, mutual care, and the human ability to start again. We encourage you to do something in refugee week to support refugees in your community.

Healing means recovering from a painful experience or situation, so that we can continue to live. No-one understands this better than those who have lost their homes and had to build new lives from scratch. We have much to learn from refugees about holding onto hope when going on seems impossible – as well as about how art, creativity and community can help us to heal.  Those going through the asylum system also know that healing is an ongoing process, made harder by poverty, housing difficulties and the threat of being detained or deported. Asking for change, so that refugees can truly feel safe, is an act of care.

Whether it’s about looking after ourselves and each other at difficult times, overcoming political divisions or coming together to fight for the survival of our shared planet, healing matters to all of us. Whoever and wherever you are, we hope you’ll join us for Refugee Week 2022 to imagine a world where healing replaces harm, and care becomes our shared currency.

We invite you to hold an event for refugee week 2022. You can explore lots of ideas for events here and download an events organiser pack here. If you are hosting an event for refugee week in Winchester then please get in touch to discuss so we can share information about it locally.

There are many Simple Acts you can do to support Refugee Week. You can build your own event or activity around a Simple Act or simply take part during the week itself, locally, regionally, nationally, online or in your own way in private, You’ll be part of a movement of people everywhere taking small steps to create a big change. Join us!

For Refugee Week 2022 (20-26 June) we invite you to do one or more of the eight Simple Acts seen here, inspired by the theme ‘Healing’. Like, send a message, or come together over food by sharing dishes with friends, family and your local community or take a walk together, maybe see if there are any Refugee Tales walks locally you could join.

Illustrations by Karin Åkesson originally posted on the Refugee Week website available here. 

Find out more about this years theme of Healing in the video below.