Published Friday 14 June 2024 at 9:10
Refugee Week is nearly here in Blackburn with Darwen with a fantastic programme of arts, culture and food.
Refugee Week is a national festival which takes place every year from the Monday to Sunday of the week around World Refugee Day.
The aim of this umbrella festival is to celebrate refugee contributions to the UK and promote better understanding of refugees’ experiences. It is the world’s largest arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.
This year the week will run from June 17th to 23rd, and the theme for Refugee Week 2024 is ‘Our Home’. From the places we gather to share meals to our collective home, planet earth: everyone is invited to celebrate what ‘Our Home’ means to them.
Home can be a place of refuge, a feeling or a state of mind. It can be found in smells, tastes and sounds. From the clothes we wear to the words we grew up with. It’s in food, music and arts. It’s in our cultures and in our landscapes.
Mark Warren, Strategic Director of Adults and Health, said:
Refugee Week is an important opportunity for us to celebrate community and the unique contribution that refugees can make to their new homes, and also the remarkable courage, determination and resilience they have in starting a new life after often traumatic experiences.
It is always wonderful to hear stories of how refugees feel they have been welcomed here in Blackburn and Darwen and how they have become part of our community here.
We recognise the value refugees from all over the world can bring to our local communities, and these fantastic events will showcase and celebrate them, and also help more of us to come together and get to know each other.”
The Council’s integration and community engagement team, working with local partners including Blackburn Museum, Blackburn Library, ARC, DARE, Kairos Housing, Community Harmony and Lancashire Wildlife Trust have compiled a full programme of events for Refugee Week.
Events include ‘A Home from Home’, a big arts and culture event at Blackburn Museum – open to everyone – an event at Blackburn Library with ‘The real Beekeeper of Aleppo’, who is the subject of the novel ‘The Beekeper of Aleppo’, based on the stories of Syriuan refugees, a Ukrainian coffee morning, a food festival and a drama performance, to name but a few.
The full programme for Refugee Week in Blackburn with Darwen is below:
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