Events and exhibitions celebrating Refugee Week 2024 will take place at venues across Newcastle and Gateshead from 17-23 June. Local organisations have developed a programme of free activities for families, displaced persons and migrants and some paid events.
Refugee Week is an annual festival that celebrates the contributions, creativity and resilience of people seeking sanctuary. It has been running in the UK since 1998 and is always held around World Refugee Day (20 June).
This year’s festival theme is ‘Our Home’ and some of the activities in Newcastle and Gateshead are listed below. Scroll down to find out more about Sanctuary in Newcastle and across the UK and Refugee Week nationally, including resources available, at the end of the page.
Events in Newcastle and Gateshead 17-23rd June
West End Refugee Service and Dance City are partnering to deliver events every day during Refugee Week. There will be free food made by the chef and volunteers at Seven Bridges Cafe at Dance City (NE1 4BR)
Refugee Employability Programme Breakfasts
Refugee Week FREE events at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
- Home is a Shared Meal events 12.30-2.30pm on 19th, 20th, 21st June: Join in a community meal and share tasty food and welcoming conversation. There will be vegetarian and halal food options, and a variety of cuisines across the week.
- Home is our bodies: 1.30-3.30pm, 19th June. Take a moment to relax and check-in with your body. Learn techniques for a self-hand massage, with Belmira. Try yoga breath work and gentle movement to support mindfulness and relaxation, with Victoria. Indulge in a relaxing Henna experience, with designs by Hina.
- Home is around us: 10-11am on 20th June. Join the Baltic team for a Quayside tour. This outdoor tour will take you on a loop around the Quayside taking in the buildings, bridges and wildlife around us. You are encouraged to ask questions and learn about where Baltic calls home. Click here to book online
- Home is a personal touch: 1-3pm 20th June. Join artist Debbie Bower to make a macrame plant hanger, personalised with your own beads. Take your creation and a plant back to your space.
- Home is community, 10am-6pm, 19-21st June: BALTIC is home to different habitats, with Kittiwakes nesting in their colonies and bees in their rooftop hives. These communities have made Baltic part of their journey of home. Taking inspiration from the migratory Kittiwake, this refugee week, you are invited to think about what home and community mean to you. Write down your thoughts and follow the instructions to turn it into an origami bird, which you can add to the nesting display in Front Room.
- Home is Family: 11am-1pm 22nd June. A picture of a loved one carried in a pocket or displayed on a wall can bring comfort and a sense of familiarity. Visit the professional photography studio in Launch Pad, Level 2, and have your photo taken with your friends and family. The photographer knows all the lighting tricks to help create a photo you can cherish, and will help children to feel at ease. Take a phone snap away with you, and Baltic will post your printed copies.
- Website: balticmill.com, Twitter, Facebook
Discover The Hide 19-23 June with chat with artist Hayden Thorpe. 1-3pm, 21st June at The Glasshouse (FREE, drop in)
The Hide is brand new artwork created by Hayden Thorpe during his time as The Glasshouse Artist In Residence over the last 10 months. Featuring music written by Hayden and recorded with Royal Northern Sinfonia, The Hide is designed to be a peaceful space to relax and reflect.
Inspired directly by a bird hide Hayden has spent time in wetlands near his hometown of Kendal, this brand new Hide will sit on the concourse of The Glasshouse, overlooking the River Tyne and the kittiwakes who call the area home. Hayden hopes The Hide will be a place of sanctuary; somewhere to connect with the natural world, escape daily demands and experience ‘a sensation of ease’ in a dedicated space.
At 1-3pm on 21st June Come along to spend some time at The Glasshouse and join Hayden in the café for free tea, coffee and cake. You will be able to experience the hide and have a chat with Hayden about the project.
Our Home event at St Mary’s Cathedral, 6.30-7.30pm on Tuesday 18th June (FREE)
An event to welcome and celebrate refugees, asylum seekers and migrants by St Marys Cathedral church. Join to listen to people’s stories, celebrate their talents. St Mary’s Cathedral Church, Clayton Street West, Newcastle.
The Death & Life of Us All at Alphabetti Theatre 7.30pm 18th and 19th June (PAID EVENT click here to book tickets)
A theatre performance mixing documentary footage, storytelling, and live-music, The Death & Life of All of Us is a funny and poignant exploration of family secrets, shame, and embracing our imperfections. From Victor Esses a Jewish-Lebanese Latinx queer performance artist, whose work looks at biographical stories.
There is funding to travel, attend and get a refreshment voucher for eligible people who are or have experience of: being a refugee, asylum seeker, an unpaid carer,
a young adult carer, If you are eligible you can find out more and complete a funding form here:
£15 full, £7.50 concession, Suitable for Over 65, Under 18, Student, Artist, Unemployment Benefit, Disability Benefit. Please note proof of concession eligibility may be asked for upon arrival at the box office. Complimentary tickets are available for PAs supporting those with access requirements.) £3 No questions (limited to 8 and online only)
LIMBO screening and Q&A 6pm-7.30pm 19th June at Tyneside Cinema (£10.75-£17.75, discounts available) Click here to book online
Join a film screening and discussion of LIMBO. LIMBO follows a group of asylum seekers who are sent to a remote Scottish island to await a decision on their fate – will their asylum claim be successful, or will they remain in painful limbo forever? Following the screening Action Foundation who support refugees and asylum seekers experiencing isolation in Tyne and Wear will be around to share insights and take questions.
InterAction drop in event 10.30am-2pm 20th June at The Turbine Hall, Castle Gate, Melbourne Street Newcastle NE1 2JQ
InterAction is a free citywide multi-agency weekly drop-in project in Newcastle for the benefit of the following people/organisations: Asylum seekers, refugees and/or other migrants; Volunteers who want to help migrants settle and integrate in Newcastle; Organisations that provide services that benefit migrants.
At there event there will be: Free refreshments; Friendly advice and support; Table tennis/pool table; Free clothing; Free haircuts; and occasional craft/music sessions.
Family event at the Magpie Club, Newcastle United Stadium 5.30pm-9pm, Friday 21st June
Join the Employability for Refugees Team at Newcastle United Foundation for an evening of celebration, with food (halal) and activities. This will take place at the Magpie Club at Newcastle United’s stadium (corner of The Milburn Stand and stretching across The Leazes Stand, St James’S Park, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 4ST). Contact Shayan Gazerani, Project Co-ordinator, to book places: Shayan.Gazerani@nufc.co.uk
Skimstone Arts & Newcastle University Refugee Week Exhibition, 11.30-1pm 21st June
Join Skimstone Arts and Newcastle University for exhibitions and performances for refugee week 2024
- Music performance 11:30am and 12:30pm Shirley and the gang are a music band of refugees who love to play music and will give a live music performance at 11:30am and 12pm
- Temporal Visitations Dwelling Place: Meet the Photographer 1pm Photographer/artist Shaho Omar has documented his own and others temporary experiences of having to navigate what is ‘home’. He has personally had to move three times in one year and continues to live in fear of being transferred again somewhere else unknown to him. “Someone else decides about your life, your psychological and emotional stability and where you live.” This commissioned exhibition is a collection of photographic images of temporary residences, briefly or sometimes more permanently inhabited, reflecting his own narrative, alongside other asylum seekers and refugees in the North East.
Skimstone Arts’ Freeflow Creativity Cafe’s brought together residents in Newcastle and those with lived refugee experience to co-create a range of poetry, audio recordings and an art installation about the theme of ‘home’. These are displayed at the gallery.
United for Sanctuary Football Festival at Wallsend Boys Club (Kirkley Park, Rheydt Ave, Newcastle upon Tyne NE28 8SX) to celebrate refugee week on Saturday 22nd June 2023 (11:00-13:00)
Men and women’s 5 a side teams from organisations across the area will be playing in a special football festival supporting and celebrating Sanctuary.
Home is friends – A refugee week summer fete, 3-9pm Sunday 23rd June Click here to book online
Come celebrate Refugee Week 2024 with Home is Friends, a HostNation Summer Fete event in partnership with The Comfrey Project. A day filled with good food, games, music, a bonfire, conversations and chances to make new friends. They will be cooking BBQ, Halal and Vegan options. If you would like to bring your own food to share – please do! Food will be available at all times in the day, so arrive when its best for you / your family.
For any further questions, please contact Harley at harley@hostnation.org.uk
Newcastle Sanctuary Forum and Newcastle City of Sanctuary
Newcastle Sanctuary Forum will meet 10-12.30 on 18th June at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art as part of celebrations for Refugee Week 2024. The Sanctuary Forum is a space for people to come together to learn, share and explore the issues related to migration and seeking sanctuary in Newcastle. Join the event to hear about the work of Newcastle City of Sanctuary and Awards of Sanctuary across the city. If you are seeking sanctuary, if you are working in the sector, come along! Bring your experience and examples to add to discussion and to shape responses in terms of how we work within the city.
Newcastle City of Sanctuary is part of a network of towns and cities throughout the country that are proud to be places of safety, and which include people seeking sanctuary fully in the lives of their communities.
- Find out more about Newcastle City of Sanctuary here
- Find out more about Newcastle Schools of Sanctuary here
- Find out more about Sanctuary Awards for organisations here
National links and resources
Visit the Refugee Week 2024 website for more information about the celebrations nationally, the 2024 theme of Our Home and how you can get involved. For updates, sign up to the Refugee Week newsletter, and follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Click here for resources available to help celebrate Refugee Week, including an education pack for children and young people. schools and community groups.
Visit the City of Sanctuary website for information about the Sanctuary movements across the UK – from community groups to councils, schools, libraries and more. Follow on facebook, twitter, instagram and tiktok and sign up to the newsletter here
Find out about Schools of Sanctuary here, with lots of resources and information for schools