Refugee Week 2024

18 June, 2024

This week is Refugee Week. This is the world’s largest arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. First established in 1998 in the UK, this annual festival aligns with World Refugee Day, which is celebrated globally on June 20th.

Over the years Refugee Week has evolved into an international movement, with events spanning the globe. Refugee Week brings together people from different backgrounds to connect beyond labels, and foster a deeper understanding of why people are displaced, and the challenges they face when seeking safety.

The theme for Refugee Week 2024 is “Our Home”. From the places we gather to share meals to our collective home, planet earth: everyone is invited to celebrate what Our Home means to them. Home can be a place of refuge, a feeling or a state of mind. It can be found in smells, tastes and sounds. From the clothes we wear to the words we grew up with. It’s in food, music and arts. It’s in our cultures and in our landscapes.

Home can be more than one place and finding it can be a journey, as it is for so many of us who have to leave our countries and rebuild our lives. Sometimes we can find home in a single person. Other times it’s in a whole community. And often, it’s in a single gesture of care and welcome.

Through our Awards programme, The Marsh Charitable Trust is partnered with Refugee Council, who work to improve and safeguard the live of refuges. Refugee Council is one of the leading charities in the UK working directly with refugees, and supporting them to rebuild their lives. They also speak up for refugees and ensure that refugees have a stronger and more influential voice in decisions that will affect them. Our Awards with the Refugee Council are a way of promoting projects run by these inspiring volunteers.

Through the MCT’s Grant-Giving programmes we are able to support charities that help refugees and asylum seekers in a vast range of ways. From offering free counselling and providing legal assistance to helping to create community in a new home away from home.

Throughout this week we will be spotlighting the incredible charities who’s mission it is to support the world’s most vulnerable and offer them safety and sanctuary.

To learn more about Refugee Week and find about events taking place throughout this week, visit their website: https://refugeeweek.org.uk/