RAP's friends
Our arty friends
Actors for Human Rights www.iceandfire.co.uk/afhr
Actors for Human Rights are a network that uses the talents of performers to influence attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers. We collaborate in joint events, and their compelling productions which combine personal stories with asylum facts are regularly performed in our areas.
Banner Theatre www.bannertheatre.co.uk
As one of Britain's longest established community theatre companies, Banner Theatre dares to speak boldly on social issues. Their current production based on people’s real-life experiences, They get free mobiles… don’t they? , is touring our project regions in 2008.
Global Link www.globallink.org.uk
Global Link is a development education centre that runs workshops, exhibitions, training and other events on global citizenship. Amongst its many achievements, Global Link has developed a popular interactive exhibition called Escape to Safety that lets people experience what it’s like to be a refugee.
Iceandfire theatre www.iceandfire.co.uk
Iceandfire is an incredible company that brings real stories of displacement and conflict to the stage. Home to our best buddies Actors for Human Rights, it was founded in 2003 by playwright Sonja Linden. They are currently bringing their new play about refugee young people, Separated , to schools.
Music for Change www.musicforchange.org
Working with 150 artists from around the world, Music for Change promotes respect for cultural diversity by bringing music and the performing arts to schools, colleges and community events. In 2008, we're working with Music for Change in schools to make learning about refugees a more exciting and memorable experience.
Our allies in awareness
Try as we might, RAP can’t travel all over the UK bringing facts and real life stories to everyone everywhere. Luckily though, there are lots of other projects that do similar work but in different regions. So if you’re not based near Nottingham, Liverpool or Bristol or near another Refugee Action office , you may find there is a very similar project just around the corner. Just check out our interactive map of the UK to find out what’s near you.
If you run a project like ours, or regularly offer talks and workshops on asylum to community groups, we’d love to add you to this list. Please email nationalrap@refugee-action.org.uk
Passages to Canada www.passagestocanada.com
Not only does Canada have one of the highest standards of living in the world, but it has an Immigration and Refugee Board that is completely independent of the government, as well as a massive country-wide speaker programme of the kind we can only dream about.
Passages is a national storytelling initiative that provides Canadians with a greater understanding of the contributions that immigrants and refugees make to Canada. The programme has its own Speakers' Bureau, with over 600 immigrants and refugees (including Members of Parliament!) who volunteer to share their experiences with youth, community and business groups.
Friends who make our communities nicer
African Initiatives Development Education, Bristol www.african-initiatives.org.uk/development_education/index.html
African Initiatives promotes RAP’s work to its vast array of contacts (and RAP repays the favour right back). Working with others including RAP, it is working on restarting the Global Learning Education Network for Bristol and South Gloucestershire.
Everyman Theatre, Liverpool www.everymanplayhouse.com
Through theatre productions and related arts workshops, Everyman Theatre has worked with us to bring refugee issues to younger audiences.
Kensington Regeneration, Liverpool www.kensingtonregeneration.com
Kensington Regeneration runs the New Deal for Communities initiative for people in the New Deal area. The Refugee Awareness Project worked with them to bring Escape to Safety, an interactive exhibition, to a school in Kensington and an adult education centre in Kirkdale for two weeks in 2007. Kensington Regeneration has also helped us to target teachers in the Kensington areas by inviting the project to speak at inset days.
Liverpool World Centre www.liverpoolworldcentre.org
Liverpool World Centre aims to raise awareness around issues of global interdependence and global justice. Mark Jackson of the Mentoring Project has kindly helped train RAP volunteers in participatory learning methods.
National Museums Liverpool www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/National
Liverpool Museums is England’s only national museums group. They have very generously donated their theatre space to Refugee Action during Refugee Week. Refugee Action Liverpool has worked closely with them on a number of projects as well as rolling out RAP sessions to all their staff.
Merseyside Refugee Support Network (MRSN)
MRSN is a local umbrella group made up of a whole bunch of great organisations that work with refugees. At the moment the Refugee Awareness Project (with Asylum Link Merseyside, Refugee Action projects, the British Red Cross Merseyside and others) are working together on ways of raising awareness of destitution (DVD coming soon!).
Nottinghamshire Police Diversity Training Team www.nottinghamshire.police.uk
Nottinghamshire Police’s experienced diversity trainers have worked with RAP to provide training expertise for RAP’s staff and volunteers. They've been great at providing helpful hints on managing adult groups and giving insights into theories of attitude change. RAP has also worked with them to deliver refugee awareness workshops as part of police training.
The Pierian Centre, Bristol www.pierian-centre.com
The centre is a space for conferences, meetings, celebrations and many community art and development events. We work closely with the centre and every year the centre's space and wonderful energy is dedicated to celebrating Refugee Week, even offering the best biscuits and sofas when energy levels are flagging…
Sahir House, Liverpool www.sahir.uk.com
Sahir House is a voluntary support and advocacy service for people living with HIV. RAP has a training exchange thing going on with them that works rather nicely - we help train their staff and they train ours. They’ve also very generously helped us organise events locally.
VOSCUR, Bristol www.voscur.org
VOSCUR is a Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) and a development agency for the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector in Bristol. VOSCUR has helped RAP reach a good deal more voluntary organisations by including us in their training programme and standing up for refugees in their equalities work.
Our young friends
Student Action for Refugees (STAR) www.star-network.org.uk
If you think all students are just a bunch of daytime telly addicts then you’ve clearly never met anyone from STAR. STAR gives university students and young people the opportunity to learn about and raise awareness of refugee issues, support refugees and campaign with and for the rights of refugees.
Our designy and wordy friends
Dan and Ray www.danandray.co.uk
Dan and Ray are our ideas, words and pictures people. When they’re not busy helping us look and sound that much better than your average shoestring charity project, they’re out doing the same for other clients like Save the Children, Wedgwood, Ikea and Nike.
Karyx www.karyx.co.uk
Karyx are the wonderful folks with all the technical know-how. An independent creative consultancy, Karyx have expertly (and very patiently) helped us make RAP all digital, thus helping us spread our words across the world-wide web.
Our brainy expert friends
Bill Bolloten and Tim Spafford www.refugeeeducation.co.uk
Bill and Tim are freelance consultants and trainers that can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about refugee children and education. Yes, that’s everything. That’s why we ask them to fact-check our infosheets on these issues. And they do so out of the goodness of their hearts – so they’re very nice AND very clever.
The Children’s Legal Centre www.childrenslegalcentre.com
Someone once said ‘Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification’. Well, the Children's Legal Centre helps RAP wise-up by making sense of complicated legal stuff. Like Bill and Tim, they fact-check our infosheets and provide helpful updates on the fast-changing world of asylum policy.
Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) www.ilpa.org.uk
We’re more than aware of how very lucky we are to have Steve Symonds on speed dial – he’s the refugee sector’s equivalent of Textperts. He runs ILPA’s information service and is the legal expert that fact-checks our infosheets and diagrams on the asylum process. Life without Steve would be confusing, inaccurate and frustrating.
Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) www.ippr.org
IPPR is a leading think tank that has done heaps of important research on migration. Their research on public attitudes to asylum has influenced RAP’s thinking and we’ve also provided input into their projects on communicating on asylum. Jill Rutter, another generous expert who has fact-checked our infosheets on refugee children, is now based in IPPR’s migration, equalities and citizenship team.
Friends who inspire us
Trapese http://trapese.clearerchannel.org/
Trapese is an inspirational Popular Educational Collective offering workshops and training that inspires and promotes action that will change our world. They have pioneered exciting popular education resources that help children, young people and adults to explore the big issues that affect us all.
We are what we do www.wearewhatwedo.org
We Are What We Do make us smile, laugh and feel like a better world is possible. They are a new movement inspiring people to use their everyday actions to change the world. They have produced two fantastic publications Change the World Nine to Five and Change the World for a Fiver that we think everyone should have a copy of.
Women for Refugee Women www.refugeewomen.com
Women for Refugee Women was set up to raise awareness of the injustices experienced by women who seek refuge in the UK. Through briefing journalists, organising events, lobbying policy-makers, and providing a platform for women to speak out for themselves, it aims to make everyone aware of the reality of life for refugee women. RAP recently supported their production Motherland , starring Juliet Stevenson, at the Young Vic, and was swept away by the passion, ambition and vision of this new network.
