Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. It takes place every June, during the same week as World Refugee Day on 20 June.
This year, Refugee Week is 15 to 21 June and the national theme is ‘Courage’.
We encourage communities to apply for grant funding to hold events during Refugee Week that will build an understanding of different cultures, promote community cohesion, and celebrate diversity and belonging.
You can read more about previous years’ Refugee Week celebrations below:
We have consistently committed to supporting refugees in Cambridge to resettle and feel safe, welcome and part of our community. We work closely with local community groups and voluntary organisations, and have been helped with offers of private-rented and housing association properties.
‘Voices of Hope and Compassion’ event in Refugee Week 2025
The poet Michael Rosen led the concert and performed poetry commissioned for the event. School children performed dances and dramas and musical pieces inspired by his words, as well as their own poetry and music composed in empathy with the refugee experience.
- Sunday 22 June 2025 at the Corn Exchange
- Selfies and book signing with Michael Rosen before and after
More than 5,000 school children worked with Michael Rosen and historian Helen Weinstein. Their compositions reflected on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of their homes, because of war, climate catastrophe, persecution or the threat of genocide.
The children also learned about the continuing difficulties survivors and refugees face as they try to build new homes and recover from the trauma of their experiences.
HistoryWorks organised this concert on our behalf. They partnered with the Sing! community choir, Cambridgeshire Libraries, and Roving Books. Other charity partners included the Refugee Hardship Fund and the Cambridge Convoy Refugee Action Group.
Refugee fundraising and Michael Rosen book signing
We collected donations for two Cambridge charities that support refugees and asylum seekers:
- The Cambridge Convoy Refugee Action Group (Camcrag). You can donate cash at the concert or donate to Camcrag online.
- The Refugee Hardship Fund, which is administered by the Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum (CECF). You can donate to CECF online.
Michael Rosen signed his books in the Corn Exchange foyer and was available to take selfie photos. Profits from the book sales went to the charities listed above.
