It was a very special and moving evening as around 150 people came together to share lovely food and reflect together about what else we can do to be a town that offers welcome and opportunities to refugees and friends seeking asylum. Our friends worked hard to make excellent food from the Ukraine, Bolivia, Iran, India and Pakistan, the colourful art from 5 schools on the theme of ‘Welcome’ made a lovely exhibition, we enjoyed fantastic music from LS18 Rocks, Asmarina Voices and individual singers, and did a quiz and heard information about the current situation.
Food, Glorious Food!
Our friends from different countries did a fantastic job making a variety of dishes, which you can see were enjoyed very much by those who attended:
Schools Art Exhibition – ‘Welcome to Leeds’
Pupils from St Mary’s, Broadgate Lane, Newlaithes and St Margaret’s primary schools and Lawnswood High school had drawn an array of beautiful pictures on the theme of ‘Welcome to Leeds’, which volunteers had put into 100 frames kindly donated by IKEA. As you can see the resulting display was colourful and very much enjoyed by all. Those people seeking sanctuary attending the event were able to choose a picture to take home with them on the night, and the rest will be distributed to others in the city.
Great music and collaboration
A talented group from LS18 Rocks serenaded us at the beginning, and then later on more LS18 Rocks young people joined together with a community choir for those seeking sanctuary (Asmarina Voices from The Playhouse) to perform several great songs – they did a great job even though they had not rehearsed together before!
We also enjoyed moving and beautiful performances from Emily Wood, a refugee from Zimbabwe, and Susan Wilcox from Leeds Trinity University.
You can listen to Emily’s story and hear her lovely singing voice on this clip from the event:
Becoming a Town of Sanctuary and playing our part
We heard from Rose McCarthy (Refugee Worker at Horsforth Chaplaincy Project / volunteer) about the Conversation Group at a local hotel (where men seeking asylum are housed on arrival) where volunteers enjoy meeting with people from a range of different countries, organise trips together and help them get involved in the community, as well as sorting and distributing donated clothes and other useful items.
She also talked about the Horsforth Town of Sanctuary group that has been meeting to work together on how we can work towards Horsforth becoming more and more a place of welcome, awareness and opportunity in its different spheres.
It is a journey and we can all play our part; people who are interested can also join the Steering Group by contacting Rose on rose@horsforthchaplaincy.org. The next meeting of the Steering Group is on Monday 22nd May at 5pm at St Mary’s Church, Horsforth.
NOTE: Local resident Andrew Charles has very kindly chosen to run the Leeds Marathon to raise funds for this work- why not support him – see his FUNDRAISING PAGE for more details.
We also heard from Mary Brandon of Asylum Matters on the recent moves by government to go against our long history of offering a place of sanctuary to those fleeing unimaginable danger and trauma, trying to change principles which are established in international law.
Then we heard first hand accounts from two men seeking asylum on their personal experiences both on the perilous journey here and about life in the hotel once they arrived.
The information stall and display board offered more information and a chance to sign up for continued involvement or mailings, and the quiz around the room helped with ‘myth-busting’ on relevant refugee matters. We are pleased to say that 40 people signed postcards asking our MP to challenge the implementation of the new Nationality and Borders Act.
SEE HOW YOU WOULD HAVE DONE ON THE QUIZ BELOW!
Don’t peek until you have had a go, but you can get the answers on the download link below:
A Big Thank you to everyone who volunteered to make this happen!
A lot of time, effort, creativity and cooking went into making this event such a success – a huge thank you to EVERYONE who helped in every way – here are a few of our smiling volunteers:
