This Refugee Week we’ve partnered with fresh handmade cosmetics company, Lush, for an in store campaign to welcome refugees.
From the 19th-28th June, all 103 Lush store fronts in the UK will be taken over with the messaging ‘Wherever you’re from, however you got here, all refugees are welcome’.
These are the powerful stories of three of Refugee Action’s Experts by Experience; Oksana from Ukraine, Hein from Burma and Monique from the Caribbean.
Every refugee’s story is different, but many of the challenges that people seeking asylum face are the same.
Please listen with an open heart and mind, try to put yourself in their shoes and imagine what you might do in their situation.
You have heard refugees’ stories not from the media that stirs up hate against them, or from the politicians that want to punish them, but from the people themselves – explaining in their own words how and why they came to the UK. Like them, millions of individuals and families worldwide have to leave their homes and seek refugee status. Every human shares the right to seek sanctuary, but many find that arriving in Britain doesn’t necessarily mean their search for safety and stability is over.
Right now, around 172,000 people who have asked for help in the UK are still waiting to find out if they’ll be protected as a refugee – trapped in the asylum system with no right to work, very little support and no opportunity to start rebuilding their lives. The government created this backlog by focusing on trying to put refugees off coming to the UK, rather than giving these claims a fair hearing quickly.
Please take a moment to fill in a welcome message.
In such a hostile, uncertain and difficult time, it could be the light in someone’s day.
