Refugee Week Southampton: a community celebration

Press Coverage:

SWVG’s William Brook-Hart, and World Stages Now Bitimbhe are interviewed on BBC Radio Solent about Refugee Week in Southampton (21st June)

Article in the Daily Echo quoting our press release: ‘Southampton’s Refugee Week free cultural events and parade’ (14th June)

SATURDAY 22nd June

This will be a day to enjoy together, with different communities coming together in friendship and solidarity.

You are welcome to come to just one event, or to join in all the events, it is up to you!

11am, Above Bar
We shall have a stall near Sports Direct. There will be songs by children from the Ukrainian Language Club, and banners for our Parade for children to decorate.

1pm, Above Bar to Palmerston Park
Carnival Parade to celebrate our Southampton communities
This will be led by the Lord Mayor of Southampton, along with a drumming band. Please wear your national costume (if possible)! Bring your banner (but please note this will be a celebration of our shared community; do not bring political banners)

Parade route map below

2-5pm Palmerston Park
Community Picnic around the bandstand, with music, dance and games
This will be a fun event where people can make friends and get to know each other better.
Music and dance. We will have music and dance from many different cultures, including an Afrobeat singer, a Ukrainian band and Afghan music.
Food. Bring your own picnic to share with friends – or buy food from stalls in the park.

Watch SWVG’s short film made especially for Refugee Week, on finding sanctuary and a new home.

Banner-making workshop

Saturday 1st June, 1-3pm
Edmund Kell Unitarian Church & Elizabeth Kell Community Hall, Bellevue Rd, Southampton SO15 2AY

We had a successful workshop making hearts from willow and tissue-paper: the heart symbolises hope and kindness. We will then use these beautiful banners as part of the carnival parade through the city centre on Saturday 22nd June.

MONDAY 17th June

Poetic drama performance – free event, no ticket required

World Stages Now drama performance with poetry based on this year’s Refugee Week theme, ‘Our Home’.

“Our new home whispers tales untold, of resilience, courage and stories bold.”

1pm, Southampton Central Library

WEDNESDAY 19th June

Film Screenings on the powerful theme of Our Home, and Q&A with cast and writers of ‘My Fair Share Too’.

Each story of migration is different, but every person arriving on our shores shares feelings of loss and fragmentation; while the hope of building a life here can often coexist with the desire to return home one day.

– My Fair Share Too: A film by Southampton-based World Stages Now (30m). Based on real life stories, it explores the experience of living where your heritage can sometimes make the process of belonging hard.

Films curated by Other Cinemas

– I Carry it With Me Everywhere, dir. Arwa Aburawa and Turab Shah (18m 47s). The film looks at multiple experiences of immigrant life, uniting three different stories of migration to London, from the Punjab, Syria and Jamaica.

– Little Pyongyang, dir. Roxy Rezvany (24m). With exclusive access to one of the world’s largest communities of North Korean defectors, it’s a tale of the struggle of one North Korean living in a London suburb to leave behind his homeland, the tension lying in his desire to return to the land that betrayed him.

Book a free ticket (or ‘Pay What you Decide’) here

7pm, MAST Mayflower Studios

Everyone who comes in peace and friendship is welcome to these events.

The events are part of Southampton Refugee Week 2024, an arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.

The theme this year is ‘Our Home’