Discover how communities across the UK are becoming Towns and Cities of Sanctuary and share your experience of working to build a culture of hospitality for people seeking sanctuary.
This year’s national conference will feature inspiring stories from City of Sanctuary initiatives across the UK, including Swansea, which has recently become Wales’ first official City of Sanctuary.
Guest speakers, including Dr Ibrahim Shaw from the UWE ‘Refugee & Migrant Support Hub’, will explore ways of creating ‘Universities of Sanctuary’ – opening up access to higher education for people seeking sanctuary.
Swansea has become the UK’s 2nd official ‘City of Sanctuary’, meeting all of the criteria set by the national City of Sanctuary network for this prestigious status. Over the last two years Swansea’s City of Sanctuary initiative has gathered the support of 105 local organisations, including faith communities, small businesses, South Wales Police and even the local paper. The City and Council of Swansea also passed a unanimous resolution of support for the bid, and is working with the local City of Sanctuary group on ways to implement this throughout local government.
We have been working on a ‘vision statement’ for what a ‘Sanctuary in Yorkshire & Humber’ initiative might look like. This is what we have come up with so far. The next step will be to meet up with potential partner organisations to work out how to put this into practice. Please click the ‘Sign up as a supporter’ button on the right if you want to stay in touch, or contact us if your organisation would like to get involved or to find out more.
City of Sanctuary is a movement to make our towns and cities welcoming places for people seeking sanctuary in the UK.
This new short film tells the story of City of Sanctuary so far, and shows some of the local groups that are helping to build a culture of welcome and hospitality.
There are now City of Sanctuary initiatives in 16 towns and cities around the country, in Sheffield, Leicester, Bradford, Coventry, Nottingham, Oxford, Swansea, Bristol, London, Ipswich, Hull, Chester, Wakefield, Huddersfield, Derby and Glasgow.
