Your ideas about how to make refugees and others feel welcome in our city:
Opportunity for Environmental Work.
The River Stewardship Company is inviting refugees to take part in guided walks along the city’s waterways. The Blue Loop community project has been working with volunteers (including Burmese refugees) to tidy up the River Don and the Tinsley Canal. River steward Hellen Hornby would be delighted to show anyone interested all that’s been done, and tell you about the interesting vegetation growing by the waterside. Anyone wishing to volunteer would be most welcome too! If interested, please contact Hellen at: theblueloop@gmail.com
Calling all footballers!
Do you want to play football for fun? Fancy playing with international students, refugees, asylum seekers and home students?
Every Wednesday 10-11am – Goodwin top pitches! Everyone welcome regardless of ability!
Or do you want to be part of a team? Train, have fun and learn every week? Then come and join us any Thursday 11-12am. Goodwin bottom pitches (behind reception). Everyone welcome regardless of ability!
Don’t miss out! For more information, please contact Dan
Invitation to a game of Bridge…
Sheffield Bridge Club is offering a free opportunity to learn the game to anyone seeking sanctuary. If interested please contact Sheffield Bridge Club: 0114 255 0844.
Anyone for chess?
Stuart writes from Sheffield Nomads Chess Club, which already has a number of asylum-seeking and refugee players and would welcome more. The great thing about chess is, of course, that you don’t even need to speak a common language to communicate!
We meet every Wednesday night at the Harlequin pub, Manchester Road at 7.30pm. We have a wide range of abilities from beginner to very strong. We have 4 teams (about 25 people in all) in the local league. So, there’s a chance to play competitive chess as well as social chess within the club.
To find out more contact Paul Bailey on pbailey@sheffieldnomads.co.uk
or have a look at our website: http://www.sheffieldnomads.co.uk/ . Other local teams are listed here: http://www.sheffieldanddistrictchess.org.uk/s&dca%20teams/s&dca%20league...
Sheffield Yoga for ME/CFS say:
If there are any asylum seekers or refugees who suffer from ME or CFS, or fibromyalgia we would welcome them to come to our Yoga for ME/CFS sessions. If interested please see their website: http://www.sheffieldyogaforme.org.uk
Amyan would like to share gardening skills..
I maintain a fairly standard town garden and also work in the Botanical Gardens on Wednesdays. I would be open to sharing experiences of both these with a fellow gardener from overseas. Please email Dan if interested
Nadine Wills wonders if you’d like others to share your passion?
What do you do in your spare time and who do you spend it with? If you have a special interest would you be willing to invite a refugee or asylum seeker along to help integrate them into the community and show them what you do?
For anyone new, it is often hard to find ways to meet and meaningfully interact with members of the local community.
Do you love to hike the Peaks?
Do you run?
Do you birdwatch?
Do you play chess?
Do you knit?
Do you sing?
Do you dance?
Do you garden?
If you do any of these things – or anything – else, and would like to invite refugees or asylum seekers to join you, please email Dan and we will send your invitation round our networks.
Ian Harding suggests a ‘Welcome Centre’
I’m sure many of you have had that experience of a long and tiring journey. Usually the day’s been stressful for a number of reasons – maybe the traffic was awful – and then there’s that great moment as you turn the corner and see home. Everything inside you relaxes, excited for the journey to be over.
For those seeking sanctuary in Sheffield, a welcome centre, can possess the same significance. A place with a warm, friendly greeting, the chance to catch up with friends, a place to get advice, a place to share jokes, exchange stories, a place for great food and a great cup of coffee. A place in fact like home.
Wouldn’t it be great if Sheffield a one such place, a place where all asylum seekers, refugees, international students could meet and experience true community?
All we need is a buidling. Suggestions anyone?
Amida Sheffield and Htooku Hsarsay…
…will cooperate to develop links between Buddhist refugees in Sheffield and local Buddhists.
Transition Sheffield suggest:
Transition Sheffield is working on several projects aimed at building local communities and economies and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels (www.transitionsheffield.org.uk). The Heeley/Meersbrook group is planning to buy some land in the Moss Valley, to turn into a large community supported agriculture project, as a low-energy local and sustainable food resource for the community. We would like to find ways of including people seeking sanctuary in the project, including in the early planning stages if possible. We will work with the VAS refugee volunteering project to try to find suitable people who might be interested in helping us get going. I’m also interested in drawing on refugees’ experiences in their own countries to help us to learn more about the current impact of climate change throughout the world. This could be a resource for many organisations campaigning in this area eg Sheffield Campaign Against Climate Change etc.
Dale from New Games suggests:
New Games are cooperative group games for everybody. People of all ages, sizes, both genders and all ability levels can join in, so even when there is competition, it doesn’t matter who wins. The emphasis is on participation and having fun.
These games are one of the best ways of making a collection of individuals into a group. When we do New Games together, it creates a lasting, positive connection to the other players. While a person may feel nervous and alone coming into the games, they leave feeling they know the others enough to feel friendly towards them, having had the same shared good experience. The games serve to bring down boundaries between people.
Boggart’s Breakfast Morris Dancers suggest:
..have a multi cultural Day Of Dance to take place in the city centre, to incorporate elements of the Sheffield Folk festival, Chance to Dance and Refugee Week and create a large event under the umbrella of City of Sanctuary and Folk Against Fascism. The UK folk scene is a welcoming one; folk music and dance have always been about collaboration, participation, communication and respect. The event would showcase Morris Dancing as part of British culture, incorporate dance from all over the world, and even mix it up a bit, with perhaps Boggarts Breakfast dancing with a Congolese drumming section in the Peace Gardens. Dancing can take place in different locations and there could be dance workshops and speakers.
