Refugee Week Review
It isn’t possible to cover everything that happened during Refugee Week 2008 in our review. From large festivals to intimate coffee mornings, as well as talks, exhibitions, dances and plays, Refugee Week showed that given the chance, we all like a good party! This review gives a snap shot of some of the press coverage of the week, but is by no means a snapshot of all the events! Later on in the year, the Refugee Week website will give a more thorough review of 2008’s events.
How Refugee Week was covered in the press locally and nationally
Local press on activities and events
BBC Scotland: Exhibition to show refugee crisis
BBC Scotland: Sleepout focus on asylum plight
This is Bristol: This isn’t feel-good, it’s truth in black and white
Yorkshire Evening post: Refugee Week helps break down barriers
Yorkshire Evening post: Refugee Week is ready to kick off in Leeds
Yorkshire Evening post: All together now...city's refugees in jamboree
Birmingham Mail: Refugees in Song and dance display
Scotsman: Refugees deserve chance to become part of the community
Guardian: Refugees portray their ordeal in Festival Film
Guardian: Racism against refugees to be reflected in London film festival
Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Work of refugees will be celebrated
Huddersfield Daily Examiner: Refugee week set to explode myths
Halifax courier: Challenge to live like (a) refugee
Individual's stories
Daily Record: Refugee family thank Scots for helping them find hope after Congo hell
Huddersfield Daily Examiner: Forced to flee the violence of Mugabe
Refugee issues highlighted during refugee week
During Refugee Week the Times, the Guardian and the Observer took the opportunity to highlight a number of issues. In G2’s ‘Britain’s new resistance fighters, they highlighted the local residents and communities are uniting to save their asylum seeking neighbours from deportation. The Observer featured a piece by Mark Haddon, novelist and long-standing Refugee supporter, where he went to the Migrants Resource centre to find out the issues that affect refugees lives in the UK. The Times Educational Supplement looked at a refugee’s experience of school and highlighted projects helping to support refugee children while they integrate into a new school.
Guardian: Land of no return
Times Educational Supplement: My brave new world
Observer: The hell of being an asylum seeker
Other news
Iraqi Interpreters
The Times featured a number of pieces about the living conditions of Iraqi interpreters who have come to Britain.
Times: Towering injustice as Iraqi translators are marooned on desolate estates Times: Britain shamed as Iraqi interpreters are resettled in squalid tower blocks
Increase in Afghan children arriving
Kent reported an increase of Afghan children being smuggled into the UK. The Guardian reported that Kent county council picked up 265 smuggled Afghan children between April 2007 and March 2008 - a 55% increase on the previous year. Afghan children have said that death threats from the Taliban and pressure to undertake suicide bombing missions are among their reasons for fleeing.
Guardian: More smuggled children arrive in UK as Afghan violence escalates
BBC: Number of smuggled Afghans rise
Evening Star: Afghan children smuggled into Suffolk
UNHCR report on refugee numbers
UNHCR reported that the number or refugees and internally displaced persons is increasing due to conflicts continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan. New figures reveal that the number of people under UNHCR responsibility has risen from 9.9million to 11.4 million in the last year. “ Mush of the increase in refugees in 2007 was a result of the volatile situation in Iraq”, a UNHCR report said.
Reuters UK: Afghanistan and Iraq drive up global refugee toll
The Economist: Still knocking, as the doors close
Barefoot trek
In other news, a refugee is walking barefoot from Derby to Downing street to raise awareness of poverty in Africa
BBC: Refugee's barefoot walk to London
Welsh news
Welsh refugee issues were also in the news with the BBC reporting on the assembly government Refugee Inclusion Strategy, which aims to support and enable refugees and asylum seekers in Wales and the launch of a Welsh Refugee Council report that highlights the problems highly-skilled refugees have in accessing appropriate employment.
Wales Online: Refugee doctors and nurses can help Welsh NHS
BBC: Minister unveils refugee aid plan
Right to work campaign
Lord Bill Morris, patron of the Refugee Council, wrote on the Guardian about allowing asylum seekers the right to work. In his article he said” For a trade unionist there can be no greater rights than those of freedom, liberty and democracy. And with them comes the right to work and to make a contribution to society; after all, work defines who and what we are.” And in the North East, the Sunderland Echo featured a local offshoot of the Refugee Council’s right t work campaign.
Guardian: Let them give something back
Sunderland Echo: Asylum seekers claim right to work
Right to work campaign
