Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees. Founded in 1998 and held every year around World Refugee Day on the 20 June, Refugee Week is also a growing global movement.

Through a programme of arts, cultural and educational events alongside media and creative campaigns, Refugee Week brings about positive encounters between communities, helping them to connect and learn from each other, and promoting a culture of welcome.

For Refugee Week 2020 (15-21 June) we’re inviting you to do one or more of eight Simple Acts inspired by the theme ‘Imagine’. Simple Acts are everyday actions we can all do to stand with refugees and make new connections in our communities.

Kirklees Libraries has, perhaps unsurprisingly, chosen to Read a Book about Exile.

Refugee Week 2020

Take a look at our themed collection, choose a book to read and join us.

Books transport us. Through the page, we can reach out and touch another’s experience, or take a hike with them through the mountains and valleys of their imagination.

Share your reviews with us on social media using the hashtags #ReadaBook #SimpleActs.

The Girl Who Smiled Beads by

Clementine Wamariya

Clementine Wamariya was six years old when she left Rwanda and her parents and began a six year journey across seven African countries with her fifteen-year-old sister, searching for safety - foraging for food, surviving and fleeing refugee camps. They did not know whether their parents were still alive. When Clementine was granted asylum in the USA with her sister Claire, she had the chance to build a new life. A brave book about love, loss and survival against enormous odds. (Angela Varley, Kirklees Libraries)

The Displaced

by Viet Thanh Nguyen

In The Displaced, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers to explore and illuminate the refugee experience. Featuring original essays by a collection of writers from around the world, The Displaced is an indictment of closing our doors, and a powerful look at what it means to be forced to leave home and find a place of refuge. (Angela Varley, Kirklees Libraries)

Kurdish Poetry Reading

A #SimpleAct. Watch a video with Sirwan from Kurdistan in Northern Iraq reading some Kurdish poetry for Refugee Week 2020 with a handy translation for non-Kurdish speakers.

Kirklees Libraries YouTube channel

Reading poetry can transport us to other worlds, help us understand other peoples lived experience. Poems can give us the words for what we feel and ways to express it to others. Poems can bring us out of ourselves and feel less isolated.

Every month we’ll be sharing a little bit of poetry as we countdown to National Poetry Day on October 1st. From Mohamed, for #RefugeeWeek2020 ...

”We have more in common than that which divides us” Jo Cox

Share your writing as part of the Great Get Together. Pass on your stories or poetry: write a line, send it to a neighbour to add a line and so on.
Share your stories on social media using the hashtags #GreatGetTogether and #moreincommon.

Moving Worlds

Moving Worlds is a programme of films available to watch at home during Refugee Week.
Films that support the performance of many diverse voices and that are dominated by powerful personal stories. Also featuring two short animation films (Escape from England & Space Refugees) for younger audiences by Claire Desenclos, asking us to imagine how we would respond to the reality of becoming a refugee and searching for a safe place to seek refuge. 

Moving Worlds is produced by Counterpoints Arts, which coordinates Refugee Week nationally.

Libby app update

Libby is now available in Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Swedish.
If a your device is set to one of the languages above, Libby will automatically display in that language.
View the collection along with details of how to download the Libby app via our Overdrive page at: kirklees.overdrive.com

Digital Magazines and Newspapers

Albanian, Arabic and Mexican are just three of the languages you can find in our Pressreader collection of over 7,300 titles. Read online or download for offline convenience.
Free access with your Kirklees library card and PIN. Text-to-speech and instant translation options are also available.

See the full collection at www.pressreader.com

kirkleeslibraries.co.uk

Carefully selected and regularly updated links and resources for:

• Creative Adults
• Creative Children
• Learning
• Making Reading Fun
• Staying Safe
• Virtual Kirklees Library
• Wellbeing