Refugee Week events in Reading

It is the World Refugee Day on 20 June, and many organisations are marking the days leading up to the event with a celebration of the creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.

The celebrations are part of the Refugee Week, a UK-wide annual festival. The theme of this year’s festival is We Cannot Walk Alone.

The events in Reading have been put together by the Reading Refugee Support Group (RRSG) in partnership with many other local organisations, including our own University.

• Sky and Ground Online Film Screening and Q&A Panel – Thursday 17 June (19:00-21:45): Sky and Ground tells the story of a Syrian family’s 3,000 mile journey to find sanctuary. The film will be followed by an interaction with special guests including Lord Alf Dubs, Professor Ruth Evans, Zainab Koroma and Waheeda Soomro discussing the topics raised in the film. Presented in partnership with Reading Film Theatre and Deloitte Reading. Find out more about Refugee Week events and book your tickets.

• Careful Listening – Friday 18 June: Careful Listening is an art project where refugees and asylum seekers listened to immersive sounds and discussed social issues that the sounds inspired them to raise. Presented in partnership with University of Reading and Ultra-red. 

• Reading Community Cup – Sunday 20 June (10:00-15:00): To mark International Refugee Day, we’re launching the inaugural Reading Community Cup. The event brings together Berkshire’s only refugee football team, Sanctuary Strikers FC, along with teams from University of Reading, Thames Valley Police and Reading West.
• Sanctuary Café Walk ‘n’ Talk group – Wednesday 23 June (14:00–15:30): We are excited to launch our first Sanctuary Café Walk ‘n’ Talk Group for local sanctuary seekers, staff and students to meet informally on campus. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this will be a Walk ‘n’ Talk group in campus spaces outdoors. We will be exploring walking routes on campus, using the Wellbeing Map of Whiteknights Campus.

For the full programme of Refugee Week 2021 events in Reading, please see the RRSG website. 

Colleagues may be aware that our University offers a sanctuary scholarship scheme for sanctuary seekers (people with refugee, humanitarian protected or asylum seeker status) in recognition of the disruption to education that displaced people experience. The Sanctuary Scholarships scheme offers the following awards each year, to applicants who have been involuntarily displaced.