Three-week festival will celebrate all that's good about refugees' in Scotland
A three-week festival will celebrate the positive impact refugees have made to Scottish society.
Organisers behind the Refugee Festival Scotland, which will be held June, say it will promote everything positive about Scotland’s multi-cultural society and the contribution refugees and asylum seekers have made to this.
Running from 3 to 21 June, the festival, run by the Scottish Refugee Council, will take place in locations across the country, including Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Skye.
The line up includes some 90 music, theatre, dance and visual arts events as well as discussions, films, community celebrations, schools events, workshops and even a football tournament.
Highlights include Being Human, a programme of visual art by Iranian refugee artists at The Arches in Glasgow; the launch of Refugee Lives in Scotland, an oral histories project being launched in conjunction with Glasgow University; the Queer Gaylidh Dance Party hosted by the LGBT Unity Solidarity Group; and a celebration of the Glasgow Girls’ story, including a screening and discussion featuring the Glasgow Girls.
We want to celebrate the rights that refugees have and encourage them to be fairly recognised
There will also be the annual Media Awards on 17 June which will recognise the best, most insightful reporting on refugee and asylum issues.
World Refugee Day takes place on 20 June and will be marked with a special day of events – from the Southside Souk multicultural market to a community screening of the Buena Vista Social club in Glasgow and a raft of community events.
Suzi Maciver, arts and cultural co-ordinator for Scottish Refugee Council, says: “We wanted this year’s theme to shine a different light on the story of refugees in Scotland and to show what positive qualities they bring to Scottish culture, as well as the genuinely warm and open-hearted relationships that have developed between local communities and people rebuilding their lives here.
“We also want there to be more than just a good feeling. We want to celebrate the rights that refugees have, the protection they are entitled to when cruel situations take their daily lives away from them, and the dignity that they have even through the toughest and most unbearable situations, all of which we as a host nation should respect and support.”
