Gatwick Detention Welfare Group are running Refugee Tales 2017

Refugee Tales project is walking from Runnymede to Westminster between 1st – 5th July. Walkers journey in solidarity with refugees, staying in churches and community buildings and sharing their stories, food and friendship along the way. Each evening there is a free public event, which uses Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as a model, with prestigious authors telling the stories of asylum seekers and those who work with them, combined with great music and compared by a well-known host.

A book (‘Refugee Tales’ by Comma Press) has collected together these stories, with authors such as Ali Smith, Chris Cleave, Inua Ellams and Abdulrazak Gurnah and others; with a second book is due out this year. Both the experience of walking with those of many different faiths, backgrounds and experiences, and the high quality evening events are very powerful and effective in promoting understanding and motivating further action.

We would really like to see people off all faiths from across London supporting this event by either walking for one or more days or by bringing groups from their faith group to attend evening event and hope you might be able to circulate information and the attached filer to your members. T

The walk is as follows

Saturday 1^st July – Runnymede to Walton-on-Thames via Weybridge, with the evening event at the River House Arts Centre. 11 miles

Sunday 2^nd July – Walton on Thames to Kingston – evening event 1945 at All Saints Kingston – 8 miles

Monday 3rd July – Kingston to Brentford – evening event 1900 at the Free Church 11 miles

Tuesday 4th July – Brentford to Hammersmith – evening event 1900 at the Polish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith – 6 miles

Wednesday 5th July – Hammersmith to Westminster – evening event at ths ICA1930

All walks are about 8 – 10 miles long, with plenty of rest stops along the way. Walkers need to book on the website and there is a cost of £7 for the day walks, which is used to fund the costs of the asylum seekers who take part. The evening events are free of charge.

More details can be found at www.refugeetales.org; on Twitter @RefugeeTales or on Facebook: The Refugee Tales.

Organiser Daniel godshaw says:-

On Sunday 2nd July, we will walk from Walton to Kingston, where will hold an evening event, 7.45pm at All Saints Church, Market Place, Kingston KT1 1JP. The evening will be hosted by Maurice Wren of the Refugee Council with music from Amadou Diagne, where authors Vahni Capildeo and Helen Macdonald will perform their tales.

On Monday 3rd July, we will walk from Kingston to Brentford, where will hold an evening event, 7pm at Evolution Montessori School, Brentford Free Church, Boston Manor Road, TW8 8DB. The evening will be hosted by Sameena Zehra with music from Liran Donin, Ranjana Ghatek and Mike ‘Dr Blue’, where author Alex Preston will perform The Witness’ Tale. We will also run an afternoon event at Richmond University, where Professor Angie Hobbs and Rabbi Jonathan Wittenburg will host a talk and discussion on ‘Due Process and Ethics’.

We would be honoured if members of your group were able to join us, either for a day’s walk or an evening event (or more!).

You can sign up for the walk on the website (www.refugeetales.org). Please do let us know if you would like to come to the events so that we can reserve you seats for invited guests.