June 19, 2025
Refugee Week is the world’s largest arts & culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Established in 1998 in the UK, Refugee Week takes place every year around World Refugee Day (20th June) and has since grown into a global movement.(1)
The theme of Refugee Week 2025 is ‘Community as a Superpower’. The theme seeks to demonstrate how community can bring people together. It can bridge divides, and it can be spaces of resilience and places for healing.(2)
Building community is a central aspect of the work of our humanitarian partners. Whether it is Ukrainian refugees building community together in Poland at community centres offering adult art and children’s art classes, or it’s Rohingya children building community in Cox’s Bazar Refugee Camp as they have school lessons together, community is central.
A great example of the power of community is Maha, who is one of the many Syrian refugees working with our humanitarian partner in Jordan at the Za’atari Refugee Camp. Her story demonstrates how community can transform a life.
Maha trained at a sewing centre as a teenage girl, hoping to build a successful career for herself, only to find herself restricted by societal norms. She married at 16 and moved into the Daraa countryside where, struggling to provide for her family, sewing became her lifeline to make ends meet.
In 2013, as the conflict in Syria escalated, she sought refugee in Jordan. She struggled in the Za’atari Refugee Camp due to the harsh desert conditions in a vulnerable tent. Her husband passed away in 2015, thrusting Maha into a profound isolation. Her mental health deteriorated, and she became confined to her home. She relied solely on the assistance provided by UNHCR, amounting to 15 dinars monthly, while her asthma medication alone cost 22 dinars per month. Additionally, she faced a health issue necessitating surgery, but due to the procedure’s nature and her age, she struggled to find financial coverage for the expenses.
When she visited our humanitarian partner’s centre in 2023, Maha’s life took a positive turn. . Initially, she volunteered without financial compensation, seeking to reconnect with people and improve her mental well-being. As opportunities occurred for paid volunteering at the sewing workshop, Maha became one of the selected volunteers, securing income to afford food and medication. She successfully underwent the necessary surgery and now works with her colleagues, sewing baby kits for newborns and school uniforms for children in the camp, all distributed free of charge. This work brings her and her colleagues’ immense fulfillment and a sense of purpose.
In Ukraine, psychologist Iryna runs an Art Therapy Class for older people at our humanitarian partner’s community centre in Bielsko-Biala.
The group, largely consisting of older women, is a vital space to explore creativity in the company of those who have shared experiences and trauma. To be invited to be creative and to express themselves through arts and crafts, shows how ‘support’ for refugees goes beyond meeting the practical needs that we might first expect.
In the sessions, Iryna also teaches the women relaxation techniques. She notes how much the group has changed from their first session:
‘When they first came, they wore dark clothes and no make-up, now they are much more relaxed’.
This relaxation is testament to the environment Iryna has cultivated with the group, she is developing a safe space for community to grow and for these women to express themselves. She also commented:
‘Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry’.
Zina, one of the members of the Art Therapy Class reflects on the support that has been given to her and her family:
‘Here we get lots of support, both psychological and social, and we get help from the Ukrainian community’.
As Refugee Week comes to a close, let us reflect on how we can support refugees across the world to find community wherever they are.
