Simple Acts of Compassion - Refugee Week 2023

Simple Acts of Compassion - Refugee Week 2023

05 June 2023 by Nicola Thomas in Refugee & Asylum.

Refugee Week: 19-25 June 2023

The theme for this year’s Refugee Week is ‘Compassion’ and we are all encouraged to identify simple acts – everyday actions we can all do to stand with refugees and make new connections in our communities.

CREATING CULTURES OF WELCOME

There are 10 ‘Simple Acts’ on the Refugee Week website, and you can find below ideas for one simple action each day you could take during Refugee Week.

Welcoming refugees can feel like a job that is too big for any one of us, or we might think that we don’t know any refugees, or that there are none in our communities. This might even be true. But even if it is true, every one of us can still work to develop our own compassion, and to create a culture of welcome in the UK.

For some of us, that might mean frontline work directly with refugees and asylum seekers, providing them with material, social or spiritual support as so many individuals and communities in London do, whether at day centres for asylum seekers, hosting displaced Ukrainians or sponsoring a refugee family.

WE ARE THE PEOPLE

But it could mean writing to your MP to protest the Illegal Migration Bill which will make it illegal to travel to the UK to claim asylum (if Egypt had implemented such legislation around 6 BC then Jesus, Mary and Joseph would have been turned back at the border or deported to Rwanda to have their claim considered there). It might mean talking to your friends about refugees and their stories, having first read a book or listened to a podcast. It might be as simple as posting a message of support on social media.

Politicians generally respond to what they think ‘the people’ are saying.

We are the people, and we need to say out loud that all people, including all refugees, are children of God and deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion.

Let’s put that at the heart of Refugee Week 2023.

Simple Acts:

Nicola Thomas

Nicola Thomas

Nicola is currently head of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation at the Diocese of Southwark and a member of the Commission on the Integration of Refugees. She is former Deputy Director of Refugee Integration and Vulnerability at the Home Office

View all posts by Nicola Thomas

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