REFUGEE WEEK 2023

Amersham, June 28^th 2023
Refugee Week is the world’s largest arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Founded in 1998 in the UK, it is held every year around World Refugee Day which is on the 20 June. Refugee Week was commemorated in Amersham this year, by several local community groups coming together to host two events. The first was on the evening of 19th June when Amersham Museum hosted a talk by local historian Alison Bailey, a Trustee of the Amersham Museum, about the long history of refugees in our area.

On Saturday 24 June, Amersham was treated to a wonderful array of music and dance, storytelling and foods from Syria and Ukraine. Once again St Michael's Square played host to a community event, bringing people together to celebrate Refugee Week. We were able to enjoy music and dance from the Ankara School of Dance who showed us a brilliant display of Indian Classical Dance. We also saw Ukrainian dancing as well as some beautiful singing from children which led to attendees joining in an impromptu dance around St Michael’s Square, such a great community spirit. It really felt that the whole town had come out to celebrate the event and it was good to see so many people involved who wanted to find out more how Amersham has helped refugees historically and is currently host to around 300 Ukrainians.

Home-made treats created by Syrian and Ukrainian families were sold and were enjoyed by all. Additionally, home baked cakes were sold in support of Care4Calais. Volunteer henna artists applied some floral patterns on hands. Storyboards and storytelling allowed guests to learn about individual stories of Amersham residents from refugee backgrounds, whilst children were able to learn about famous refugees on a scavenger hunt.

We were delighted to be joined by MP Sarah Green, Mayor Elizabeth Shepherd and Councillor Parveiz Aslam who all enjoyed the activities.

This was the first such event that Amersham has hosted and was able to happen due to the organisation of Amersham Museum, Rotate, Chiltern Welcomes, Equaliteach and the Amersham Action Group. From the overwhelming positive response that we received from people we very much hope to make it an annual event for the Amersham Community.

The team would like to thank Amersham Action Group, Chesham Bois Parish Council, Amersham Tesco and Amersham Rotary for their financial support to enable this event to go ahead and helped our refugee residents to fund their stalls. Also thank you to Danny Rolnick who provided the PA system and some great beats. We are grateful that photographer Pippa Hart kindly spent the morning capturing the activities. We also want to thank everyone who helped make this event a such a huge success.