Refugee Week is a festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees.
Refugee Week runs at hundreds of schools across the country, with teachers helping children and young people develop an understanding of refugee experiences they will carry into adult life. Here at Ark Alexandra Academy, in support of Hastings Community of Sanctuary, we held a panelled debate on the Government's policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda with the base question, "Is the Government's Rwanda policy defensible?".
Polly Gifford from Hastings Community of Sanctuary (https://hastings.cityofsanctuary.org/) delivered a workshop educating students on the definitions of refugees and migrants and how the media plays its part in the narrative. Author Gulwali Passarlay, an Afghan political refugee currently residing in the UK since leaving Afghanistan in 2006, delivered an assembly and workshop to students about his journey, answering questions about being a refugee.
We raised money in a cake sale during break times, held a Drama session with poetry and a song, and contributed to the Sanctuary Festival at the Hastings Museum & Art Gallery.