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 theme for Refugee Week 2024 was ‘Our Home’.
- Read our news release about Refugee Week 2024.
Our Voices of Hope and Compassion concert was held on Sunday 30 June. The concert was organised by Helen Weinstein, and hosted by Michael Rosen, alongside choirs, poets, musicians, drama and dance groups who have been involved in the education and arts programme.
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.
Community education and arts programme
Each year the council commissions Helen Weinstein from HistoryWorks to run an education and arts programme with local pupils, community groups and choirs, working with poet Michael Rosen.
In the past year, over 5,000 young people have been involved in school workshops and special assemblies. The compositions created reflect on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of their homes because of war or climate catastrophe, persecution or threat of genocide.
They also consider the continuing difficulties survivors and refugees face as they try to build new homes and recover from the trauma of their experiences.
