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Refugee week 2021

By kind permission of David Raikes and Carla Rapoport , Hay ,Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees[ HBTSR] are delighted to be able to hold a socially distanced, ‘bring your own’ picnic and walk in the grounds of Treberfydd House on June 30th 12-2.30pm as a late contribution to Refugee week.

Treberfydd poster v1

Please let Adil ([email protected] or mobile 07847 210465) know beforehand if you would like to attend, and he will keep you posted if anything changes.
Please provide Name. Contact phone. E-mail address please.

Refugee Week is an annual, week long festival held around the time of  World Refugee Day [20th June ] to celebrate  the contributions and resilience of people who are forced to seek refuge. The aims  of this week are  to encourage understanding of why people are forced to flee,  the challenges that they face when seeking safety and also to provide a platform to share experiences, perspectives and creative work.

Refugee Week 2021 is 14-20th June and the theme is ‘We cannot walk alone’ inspired by Martin Luther King’s comments about how all peoples human rights  and freedoms are inextricably intertwined.

The challenges of the past year have exposed the deep inequalities between many of us in housing, income and access to healthcare amongst other things.  But the crisis has also shown how enmeshed  we are – that the well-being of each of us depends on the welfare, safety and hard work of others. We are part of a shared ‘us’.

Martin Luther King was speaking during the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, but his words still resonate . We are reminded  that we can move forward better  if we come together.  That if  we choose to walk side by side, to share networks and resources,we create deeper and longer-lasting changes than are possible alone.

The theme of Refugee Week 2021, ‘We Cannot Walk Alone’, is an invitation to extend your hand to someone new. Someone who is outside your current circle, has had an experience you haven’t, or is fighting for a cause you aren’t yet involved in. Refugee Week  also has links with the Jo Cox Foundation Great Get Together who suggest a socially distanced walk together would allow for safe coming together to create new connections and reflect on the journeys that refugees face.

Some Facts

A refugee is someone who: ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country’ (Article 1, 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees).

The definition of an asylum seeker is someone who has arrived in a country and asked for asylum. Until they receive a decision as to whether or not they are a refugee, they are known as an asylum seeker. In the UK, this means they do not have the same rights as a refugee or a British citizen would. For example, people seeking asylum aren’t allowed to work.

76% of all people seeking asylum wait longer than 6 months for a decision and as they are not allowed to work have to survive on just £5.66 a day.  Only about 0.26% of the UK’s total population are either asylum seekers or refugees and most people seeking asylum do so in countries near to their home- for example Turkey has over 3.5 million people seeking asylum currently.