Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. It takes place every June.
The national theme for 2025 is ‘Community as a Superpower!’ – we have chosen to complement this by using ‘Our Home, Our Community’ as our theme.
We have consistently committed to supporting refugees in Cambridge to resettle and feel safe, welcome and part of our community. We work closely with local community groups and voluntary organisations, and have been helped with offers of private-rented and housing association properties.
In recent years we have run a community education and arts programme, and hosted a free concert during Refugee Week in support of refugees.
‘Voices of Hope and Compassion’ event
Join us for a free concert to mark the end of this year’s Refugee Week festival. The poet Michael Rosen will lead the concert and perform poetry commissioned for the event. School children will perform dances and dramas and musical pieces inspired by his words, as well as their own poetry and music composed in empathy with the refugee experience.
- Sunday 22 June, 4 to 5.30pm at the Corn Exchange
- Free event – you do not need a ticket
- Doors open at 3.30pm
- Selfies and book signing with Michael Rosen before and after
We suggest that the event is suitable for children aged nine and older, because the words and performances will address wars and genocides. Younger children should only attend at the discretion of adults in their family. We recommend that adults follow up and guide their children in discussing the issues they will hear and learn about during this event.
In the past year, more than 5,000 school children have worked with Michael Rosen and historian Helen Weinstein. Their compositions reflect on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of their homes, because of war, climate catastrophe, persecution or the threat of genocide.
The children have also learned about the continuing difficulties survivors and refugees face as they try to build new homes and recover from the trauma of their experiences.
HistoryWorks are organising this concert on our behalf. They have partnered with the Sing! community choir, Cambridgeshire Libraries, and Roving Books. Other charity partners include the Refugee Hardship Fund and the Cambridge Convoy Refugee Action Group.
Refugee fundraising and Michael Rosen book signing
This year we are collecting donations for two Cambridge charities that support refugees and asylum seekers. Both charities will have stalls at the event to explain how they help Refugees. The charities are:
- The Cambridge Convoy Refugee Action Group (Camcrag). You can donate cash at the concert or donate to Camcrag online.
- The Refugee Hardship Fund, which is administered by the Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum (CECF). You can donate to CECF online.
Michael Rosen will be signing his books in the Corn Exchange foyer – you can bring a book from home or buy one from Roving Books on the day. You can ask for selfies with him between 2.30 and 3.30pm, and purchase books after the concert until 6pm. Profits from the book sales will go to the charities listed above.
