Refugee Week is a UK-wide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK, and encourages a better understanding between communities.

Every year, hundreds of events are organised aiming to counter fear, ignorance and negative stereotypes, exploring the contributions that refugees give to the UK and the reasons why they seek sanctuary in the first place.

Events this year, taking place between 14-20 June, include a British Citizenship Test Competition, the World Refugee Day Umbrella Parade and the Alternative World Cup Football Tournament, a five-a-side tournament bringing together players of refugee and non-refugee backgrounds.

The main theme this year is ‘Simple Acts’, consisting of twenty everyday actions that can be done by anyone, such as cooking a dish from another country, giving someone a book about refugees and fact-finding about refugees.

These ‘Simple Acts’ may sound insignificant, but the campaign hopes they will encourage greater understanding of refugees and the breaking down of barriers within communities.

Every year, hundreds of events are organised aiming to counter fear, ignorance and negative stereotypes, exploring the contributions that refugees give to the UK and the reasons why they seek sanctuary in the first place.

Events this year, taking place between 14-20 June, include a British Citizenship Test Competition, the World Refugee Day Umbrella Parade and the Alternative World Cup Football Tournament, a five-a-side tournament bringing together players of refugee and non-refugee backgrounds.

The main theme this year is ‘Simple Acts’, consisting of twenty everyday actions that can be done by anyone, such as cooking a dish from another country, giving someone a book about refugees and fact-finding about refugees.

These ‘Simple Acts’ may sound insignificant, but the campaign hopes they will encourage greater understanding of refugees and the breaking down of barriers within communities.

Refugee Week is a multi-agency project, including the Refugee Council, Amnesty International and the Children’s Society, amongst others.

See the leaflet below with a breakdown of events taking place in Leicester throughout Refugee Week 2010:

Refugee_Week_Leaflet_2010_Web_Download_Version_3

Official statistics refute the claims that Britain is being “swamped” by immigration and show the desperately impoverished conditions in which immigrants live and work.

Read full article here

The language of sections of the press can be mainly or frequently unbalanced, negative and in some respects potentially alarming.The press have the right to raise issues of interest to their readers but it is important to balance this against the need to respect human rights and the safety and cohesion of communities.

The Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK (ICAR) yesterday(09/12/09) published a document which is a rough guide to assist those seeking knowledge about UK asylum seekers and refugees to navigate secondary sources of data and information.

Many postgraduate students have chosen to focus their research on analysis of media coverage of asylum issues. Most local and national newspapers have their own websites. Some only have their
articles of the day online, others have free or pay-to-access online archives. A Google search will reveal most newspapers’ website details. A number of newspapers and broadcasters, such as the BBC and the Guardian, have dedicated sections on asylum and immigration issues.

A number of organisations and projects dedicated to interrogating the nature of media
representation of asylum issues (including HAT News – see page 35 of the guide)have also been established and these are a useful source for research reports and secondary analysis and commentary.

The guide, Gathering Evidence Effectively has been organised by type of information provider. The sections are as follows:
1. Government and statutory sector
2. Academia
3. Legal bodies
4. Voluntary sector
5. Inter-governmental organisations
6. Media
7. Think tanks
8. Professional bodies
9. Private research companies
10. Portals and information hubs
11. Archives of raw data for secondary analysis
12. Listservs

To read click Gathering Evidence Effectively

For more information visit the ICAR website.

With a family too poor to let her finish high school, the girl, then just 17, decided to head to South Africa last year in search of a better life and a chance at further education. She and two older women managed to get a ride with some South Africans driving a truck from her impoverished homeland back to South Africa.

At the famous Beit Bridge crossing, the driver promised, they, like so many others, would be able to sneak across a weak link in the border fence to enter South Africa illegally.

Read full article here

(Reuters) – Aid agencies, led by the United Nations, on Monday launched an appeal for $378 million to meet Zimbabwe’s humanitarian needs, amid signs that the crisis facing the country is easing under its unity government.

Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government, formed by President Robert Mugabe and his rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in February, has presided over improving social conditions in the country, but aid agencies say more needs to be done. More than 70 aid organisations, including U.N. agencies, are requesting the money to for food security and to improve health, water and sanitation.

U.N. assistant secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Catherine Bragg, who presided over the launch ceremony in Harare, noted an improvement in Zimbabwe’s social conditions under the unity government. “Zimbabwe is experiencing a gradual shift from humanitarian crisis to recovery following political changes that positively affected socio-economic conditions,” she said.

“Despite improvements in food security, the country still faces a substantial national cereal deficit and an estimated 1.9 million will need food assistance at the peak of the hunger season, between January and March.”

Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis peaked last year when a cholera outbreak, blamed on collapsing health, water and sanitations systems, killed over 4,000 people in nearly 100,000 cases. About 7 million people needed food aid in 2008. Bragg said the easing crisis meant the 2010 aid request would be the lowest since agencies and the U.N. began the appeals process in 2006. Donors managed to provide 64 percent of the 2009 appeal of $719 million. Western donors, seen as key in Zimbabwe’s recovery efforts, have been providing mostly humanitarian aid while holding out on direct assistance to the government until it implements broad political reforms.

Photo: Maram Mazen/IRIN

A boy at Shagarab refugee camp: Shagarab, with the worst conditions among the three biggest camps in eastern Sudan, houses more than 21,000 mostly Eritrean refugees, in addition to some Ethiopians and Somalis.

Eastern Sudan hosts more than 66,000 registered Eritrean refugees, the first of whom arrived in 1968 during the early years of Eritrea’s war of independence against Ethiopia. These days, Eritrea’s policy of indefinite military conscription, coupled with drought and poor economic opportunities, prompt some 1,800 people to cross into Sudan every month, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

“Refugees have been here for the past 30-40 years, which is two to three generations, and that is quite unique,” said Peter de Clercq, the UNHCR representative in Sudan.

“It is as far as we know the longest-standing refugee situation in Africa that is still protracted. That is mostly because of the political situation inside Eritrea,” he said.

As they planned for their big escape to Europe or Israel, asylum-seekers dreamed of a better life in Sudan. But instead, thousands woke up to the realities of the grim camp conditions, lacking food security or proper healthcare, and sharing scarce resources with Sudanese nationals. On arrival at the reception centre at Shagarab camp in Kassala state, near the Eritrean border, they are not immediately provided with proper shelter. Only when their refugee status is confirmed, which can take four to six weeks, are they able to move into tents or huts, which they often have to build themselves.

View full article here

Antonio Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the arrival of large numbers of displaced people in crowded cities was pushing up the costs of food and accommodation and making it more difficult for local populations to scrape by. The resultant pressure “can create tensions between local and refugee populations, and in worst cases, can fuel xenophobia with catastrophic results,” he said. Kabul has grown sevenfold since 2001, the UNHCR said, mainly because of large numbers of displaced people from Iran and Pakistan, as well as uprooted people within Afghanistan who have flocked to the capital.

Armed conflict has also driven hundreds of thousands to Bogota in Colombia and Abidjan in Ivory Coast, where many are forced to live in “ill-serviced slum areas” that lack the basic aid often associated with United Nations camps, the agency said. Damascus in Syria and Amman in Jordan have also become a sanctuary for Iraqis who were forced to flee the violence in their country following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

“We need to abandon the outmoded image that most refugees live in sprawling camps of UNHCR tents,” said Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister. He said many urban-dwelling refugees lacked access to medical care or other assistance and were subject to exploitation because they did jobs that were unregulated. (Reporting by Laura MacInnis)