Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

Refugee Week is a worldwide festival celebrating the creativity, resilience and contributions of refugees. It celebrates its 25th anniversary in the UK between June 19 to 25. It also marks a year since Sunderland officially became a City of Sanctuary.

This year’s event aims to unite the nation by inviting people to put their compassion into action and to make new connections through arts and culture.

Through local festivals, exhibitions, performances, culinary experiences, hikes and more, the events strive to inspire audiences and convey shared human experiences that bind us together.

Sunderland’s programme of events for Refugee Week 2023 takes place between June 19 and 25.

There is a packed programme. As is traditional, the week starts with the Walk of Sanctuary around Sunderland, visiting various landmarks.

Young Asian Voices take on teachers’ union NAS/UWT at cricket, with the latter “out for revenge after some humiliating defeats in previous years”. Twelve five-a-side teams representing a range of voluntary organisations, contest a football tournament at the Beacon of Light.

Friends of the Drop in (FODI) and Fightback are staging Refugee Week lunches. There is the opportunity to hear refugee stories at the Breakfast with a refugee event at Back on the Map in Villette Road.

On Thursday the University of Sunderland hosts ReportOUT’s #safertobeme full-day symposium and is showing the film Flee, in the Murray Library on Chester Road.

Backhouse Park sees the return on Saturday afternoon of International Community Organisation of Sunderland’s (ICOS) popular celebration featuring a collective art piece on the theme of compassion, international dance, children’s activities and lots more.

At the Bangladeshi Centre in Tatham Street a partnership of organisations is staging a celebration with a fashion show, dancing, drumming, with food again on offer.

The often grim history of the site of the new Minster Park

The Refugee Week lunch at Minster Green, 12-2pm on Sunday, June 25, features sport for kids and a bouncy castle to close the week.

FODI chair Steve Newman says: “Refugee Week is such an important part of the calendar. It’s great to see so many voluntary organisations and charities working together with the common aim of showing compassion for people who have faced and continue to face hardship beyond the experience of most people.”

For more information, visit www.refugeeweek.org.uk.

Sunderland set to celebrate its Refugee Week 2023