1Overview
Refugee Week Norwich 2026 ran over one week, from Monday 15 to Sunday 21 June 2026, coinciding with World Refugee Day on Saturday 20 June. This year's theme, Courage, reflected on the bravery it takes to begin again, to speak up, to reach out, and to stand alongside one another in solidarity, celebrating both the courage of people seeking sanctuary and the courage found in everyday acts of kindness, connection and community. The week was coordinated by New Routes Integration, partly funded by Norwich City Council, and delivered in partnership with a wide network of organisations including The Bridge Plus+, Norwich City of Sanctuary, English+, Grapes Hill Community Garden and the UEA University of Sanctuary.
The launch at Dragon Hall on 11 June brought partners, community members, artists, volunteers and supporters together ahead of the main week. Exhibitions extended the programme beyond the core dates.
Estimated wider reach
A Day of Welcome 2026 · Schools of Sanctuary
2Aims
Our aims brought the national Refugee Week themes into local spaces, relationships and opportunities to take part.
Celebrating Contributions and Reframing Narratives
We wanted people in Norwich to hear and see stories of seeking sanctuary, of community and belonging. Through exhibitions, film, storytelling and the multilingual audio trail, we aimed to give people space to share their creativity and experiences on their own terms. The point was to look beyond labels and headlines: to recognise what people bring to the city, start conversations and build understanding through the stories of our neighbours.
Participation and access for all
We aimed to offer free or low-cost events in public spaces, with access built in. Shared meals, garden activities, family events and walks offered different ways to join in, supported by accessible venues, drop-in sessions and multilingual storytelling. One of our aims as an organisation is to create contact between people seeking sanctuary, migrants and the wider community. Doing something together makes that contact easier, helping people meet beyond their usual circles and feel part of life in Norwich.
Inspiring courage and action
The national Refugee Week Theory of Change connects creative participation and shared experiences with greater understanding, solidarity and collective action.[1] We wanted people to recognise their own capacity to make Norwich more welcoming, whether by sharing a message of hope, volunteering, donating or speaking up for refugee rights. A Million Acts of Hope, the Lift the Ban campaign, film discussions and community lunches offered different ways to take that first step. By bringing people together around creativity and conversation, we aimed to turn the theme of Courage into practical support and longer-term involvement.
Strengthening partnerships
Our mission of helping asylum seekers and migrants find welcome, safety and security in Norwich is only possible through the strength of our network. Our RWN programme creates opportunities for organisations, community groups, artists and volunteers to plan and deliver events together, share spaces and introduce their work to new audiences. We wanted those connections to last beyond the festival, making it easier to work together and build a stronger year-round offer.
[1] Refugee Week, Theory of Change, pp. 14–15: outcomes and impact.
3Attendance
Attendance by strand
“+” marks lower-bound attendance estimates supplied by event partners.
Exhibitions and installations 550+
| Event | Attendance |
|---|---|
| Courage in Community — photography exhibitionAcross two venues | 400+ |
| Ukrainian Art Exhibition and Workshops | 80+ |
| Locating the Rural — art exhibition | 70 |
Gardens and family events 337+
| Event | Attendance |
|---|---|
| Grapes Hill Families Day | 123 |
| Be Brave, Be Curious, Be Creative! Family Day | 100+ |
| Gardens of Sanctuary — International Picnic | 100+ |
| Board Games in the Garden | 14 |
Community meals 385+
| Event | Attendance |
|---|---|
| New Routes Community Lunch | 120 |
| Together in Hope with the Common Lot | 80 |
| The Bridge Plus+ Community Lunch | 120 |
| Community Lunch & Short Talk | 65+ |
Public campaigns 213+
| Event | Attendance |
|---|---|
| Hope Happens Here — orange hearts | 150+ |
| New Routes Launch Party | 63 |
Arts and Making 77
| Event | Attendance |
|---|---|
| Bicycle Links Mural PaintingAcross four days | 48 |
| Locating the Rural — art, film & poetry | 12 |
| Drop-in Coffee Morning with Art Workshop | 5 |
| International Acoustic Jam | 12 |
Trails, Tours, and Outdoors 76
| Event | Attendance |
|---|---|
| Strangers Walking Tour (16 Jun) | 17 |
| Strangers Walking Tour (18 Jun) | 14 |
| Paddleboarding ActivityFor asylum-seeker and refugee families | 18 |
| Norfolk Wildlife Trust Wellbeing WalkAt capacity | 12 |
| Tales and Trails school walk | 15 |
Film 60
| Event | Attendance |
|---|---|
| Everybody to Kenmure StreetSold out | 60 |
4Access and inclusion
Almost the entire programme was free. The only ticketed event was the Cinema City screening, which carried a £5.99 unwaged rate alongside the £8.50 general price.
Access was built into the offer in practical ways:
- All events were open to all ages to foster a sense of community and allow families to enjoy experiences together.
- Every effort was made to find accessible venues and volunteers to help overcome any language barriers.
- Informal ways to join in: the acoustic jam, board games, coffee morning and art workshop, and Bicycle Links mural offered free activities without the need to book.
- Multilingual storytelling: Discover Norwich’s Stories was co-created and narrated by migrant pupils and their families in languages spoken across Norfolk.
- A dedicated space for families seeking sanctuary: the paddleboarding activity was reserved for asylum-seeker and refugee families.
Free entry is an important starting point, but inclusion also depends on people hearing about events, feeling welcome and knowing what to expect. The survey findings below will help us strengthen that part of the offer.
5Partners
We worked with 40+ venues, artists, organisations and individuals to deliver this year's programme. Refugee Week would not be possible without the strength of our partnerships, including the Norwich Integration Partnership.
New Routes is committed to strengthening our local partnerships, as we understand how important they are for our services. Working together during Refugee Week gives us time to know each other's work and brings different communities into shared spaces in our efforts to foster integration.
“Working alongside partners such as Bridge+ and The Zainab Project was wonderful - it's been great getting to know them.”
— Family Day contributor
Organisations, venues and individuals named in the RWN26 programme
New Routes Integration · Norwich City Council · The Bridge Plus+ · Norwich City of Sanctuary · English+ · Grapes Hill Community Garden · University of East Anglia / University of Sanctuary · Dragon Hall · Schools of Sanctuary · Michael Rosen · Dina · Ayman · Ramzee · Empathy Festival · Norwich Tales and Trails · Norfolk County Council REDI Team · Anteros Arts Foundation · Dr Hannah Owens, University of Warwick · Council for British Research in the Levant · The Syrian Sunflower · Bicycle Links · Joey La Meche · Commoners Choir · Paul Dickson · Museum of Norwich · Norfolk Wildlife Trust · Chapelfield Road Methodist Church · St Martin at Palace Plain Church · The Forum · A Million Acts of Hope · Cinema City · Ruth Stokes · Seema Syeda, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants · St Matthew's Church · Sainsbury Centre · The Zainab Project CIC · The Sanctuary Ambassadors Project · The Common Lot · Mile Cross Phoenix Centre · Gardens of Sanctuary · Waterloo Park · Norfolk & Waveney Mind · Ben & Jerry's · Norwich Theatre / Theatre Royal · Strange Fascination Theatre · Norwich Cathedral · Liz Waugh McManus · The Mitré Café · National Centre for Writing · East Church · UEA Enterprise Centre · Refugee Action · Quentin Blake (illustrations)
6Survey
An online survey invited partners and contributors to reflect on their experience of Refugee Week Norwich. These findings represent the views of those who delivered or contributed to the programme, rather than a survey of all attendees. Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
92% rated their own event Good or Excellent.
77% rated overall coordination Good or Excellent.
100% expressed interest in taking part in 2027: 77% definitely and 23% probably.
What partners valued
Contributors valued working alongside other organisations and getting to know new partners. Painting the Bicycle Links mural, singing, drumming and family activities gave people something to do together and a natural starting point for conversation.
The Tales and Trails Schools Walk stood out for celebrating multilingualism and giving children from migrant backgrounds a space where their experiences were shared and valued.
“Children who might feel the minority in their school spent the day in a space where they were the majority; celebrating speaking multiple languages as a superpower.”
— Tales and Trails Schools Walk contributor
Contributors also wanted to see Hope Happens Here / Hearts for Hope return, with more time for schools to take part.
What we can build on
54% felt they had fully or mostly reached their intended audience; 46% reported partial or no reach. The same split applied to whether refugee and migrant communities were well informed and able to access the wider programme.
The Ukrainian exhibition contributor rated the event ‘Poor’, citing concerns about the suitability of the venue, promotion and communication that should inform planning for future exhibitions.
- Allow more time for participation: share key dates and programme information earlier, particularly with schools and community partners, so they can plan their involvement.
- Help information reach people through familiar routes: combine printed materials and partner promotion with personal invitations through trusted community contacts.
The feedback points to practical ways to extend the programme's reach while keeping the shared activities and partnerships that contributors valued most.
7Issues and successes
Successes
A Million Acts of Hope made welcome visible
Hope Happens Here aimed to inspire the public with messages of hope and solidarity from Norwich and the wider area, with displays around Norwich and the largest one being at The Forum, as part of the national campaign A Million Acts of Hope. We reached our goal for submissions and the day of engagement at The Forum had 150+ attendances and invited reflection from the many thousands who travelled to The Forum that week.
Interest turned into practical support
The week generated donations, more than 20 new volunteer enquiries, and five new volunteers recruited. Everybody to Kenmure Street was a sold-out ticketed film event, with 60 attendances and a panel that explored solidarity and migrant rights to inspire action and community organising. Our programme brought significant attention to advance national calls for action such as the Lift the Ban campaign. Our community lunches connected our participants to members of the Norwich City Council, giving our participants a direct voice to those with power to influence lasting change.
A lasting local honour
The Kath Griffiths Award gives the festival a permanent local honour to recognise the people whose work advances our mission to create welcome and inclusion in Norwich, carrying forward Kath Griffiths’ legacy in helping make Norwich a City of Sanctuary. We hope this award will continue to inspire action and also be a source of future media coverage to expand the festival's reach.
One focused week brought people together
Going back to one core week gave the programme a clear rhythm and a more consistent day-to-day turnout. Our turnout for our core events was consistent with previous years, while reducing the difficulty of coordinating events with a limited budget and staff.
A deeper connection with the Ukrainian community
As the war in Ukraine rages on, sustaining relationships with the Ukrainian community has remained a priority to us since RWN 2023. This year strengthened and grew our engagement with the Ukrainian community with the events and exhibitions organised in partnership with Olga Sovenko recording 80+ attendances at the Ukrainian Art Exhibition and Workshops and raising hundreds of pounds.
A new regular partnership with Norfolk Wildlife Trust
The wellbeing walk at Sweet Briar Marshes will now become part of our monthly programme. Our Refugee Week collaboration has developed into a regular opportunity for our communities to spend time outdoors, interact with and meet new people and enjoy Norfolk's greenery. This is a hugely valuable development as we aim to work to support our participants’ mental health at a time when access to mainstream mental health services remains limited for many.
Showing off Norwich's creativity
Community mural painting, multilingual poetry, exhibitions, singing and family craft activities offered different ways to make and share work. Contributors singled out hands-on activities for bringing people together, while the Schools Walk celebrated the languages and experiences children brought with them. These activities supported the national Theory of Change's aims to celebrate refugee creativity and contributions, connect communities and spark imagination.[1] They gave people opportunities to contribute as artists and makers, share skills and start conversations through something they created together.
Looking forward to 2027
Our evaluation serves as part of our commitment to year-long dialogue and exchange between us and our partners and community. We deeply appreciate the feedback we have received. Our feedback identified instances where there was miscommunication, delayed responses, and gaps in material provision. These issues reflect the reality and pressure of working with small organisations with limited budgets and few staff, and working on tight timelines in a city where big demand for arts venues creates long waiting lists. They do, however, invite reflection for us to improve our delivery every year. Maintaining a single point of contact for each contributing organisation prevents tangled threads regarding responsibility for different provisions and gives New Routes' coordinators a clear channel for questions and updates. This reduces the risk of delayed communications near deadlines, but logistics also need to be confirmed well in advance to give people breathing room to respond. Ensuring materials agreed to in advance are delivered on is key, and assigning volunteers who participate year-to-year who can help take on more responsibility would provide a practical, low-cost way of ensuring adequate distribution of print materials for events and promotion. We look forward to applying lessons learned from every single event to strengthen Norwich's Refugee Week impact.
Managing the tension between promotion and hostility
Refugee Week needs to be visible enough for people to find and join it, while taking seriously concerns about hostility towards refugee and migrant communities, which we have seen firsthand. Contributor feedback described the difficulty of reaching people in this climate:
“I think promotion was more low key this year due to fear of far right trouble... I realise it is really difficult at the moment in this political climate of getting info to the right people.”
— International Acoustic Jam / Grapes Hill contributor
Striking the balance between visibility for the people we serve and safeguarding events is a challenge that we will continue to engage with alongside our partners, discussing how to best utilise direct invitations through trusted networks, and digital platforms like Eventbrite to only give addresses to confirmed ticket holders while continuing to have our events as open and welcoming as possible.
Reaching our communities and reaching further
Some feedback indicated that people were unaware of the range of events on offer or had only found out about them by chance. Digital channels such as email lists may not be as effective as printed pamphlets in reaching people who regularly attend our activities. Increasing the number of volunteers available in the weeks leading up to Refugee Week, not just during it, would help us distribute the programme in community spaces, shops and partner organisations. Consultation with partners has already helped us to develop our targeted list of venues for print promotion for next year.
Contributors wanted stronger refugee participation across the programme, noting that demographics at many events skewed towards the host community. We have found that traditional channels are less likely to reach our participants than direct trusted contacts and community groups and plan to create a “snowball” strategy with our participant advisors and participant volunteers to encourage refugee participation through word of mouth.
We also wanted greater participation from other parts of Norfolk. Partners in Diss expressed interest in being more involved, but that did not materialise into an event. Extending the geographic reach of our programme should be a priority, taking account of differences in political climate and organisational capacity between Norwich and the rest of Norfolk.
