UK organisation takes charge in aiding refugees and displaced people

This week, Monday 19 June to Sunday 25 June, is Refugee Week. Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival that sets out to celebrate the contributions, creativity, and resilience of displaced people and refugees.

Refugee Action is a leading UK charity that has supported asylum seekers and refugees since 1981. The charitable organisation provides displaced people with essential support towards building a safe, happy, and productive life in an unfamiliar place of refuge.

Refugee Action is currently a female-led organisation, which was founded by Colin Hodgetts after an influx of refugees arrived in the UK from Vietnam in the 1980s. The organisation is funded by the Home Office and is led by Penny Lawrence. Penny Lawrence is the Chair of Refugee Action and the Chief Adviser for the 'Fair Share of Women Leaders' campaign.

In honour of Refugee Week, Refugee Action has collaborated with the handmade cosmetics company Lush. The collaboration will run until 28 June 2023. Together, they have launched an in-store campaign that sets out to make refugees and displaced people feel welcome.

This week, every Lush storefront across the UK will be covered with the message: 'Wherever you're from, however, you got here, all refugees are welcome'.

The word "welcome" will also be pasted onto the storefront windows in Albanian, Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Kurdish, Spanish, Tigrinya, Pashto, Ukrainian and Burmese. The inclusion of languages will represent the most common countries that the people in the UK have fled.

The Head of Fundraising at Refugee Action, Ali Noyce, addressed the welcome campaign, stating: "We are so excited about this partnership with Lush, which will raise the voices of refugees, highlight the horrors of the Government's hostile environment, and raise crucial funds for Refugee Action's work."

A new bath bomb has also been created, to urge others to be kind and accepting of refugees. The bath bomb will depict the word "welcome" and will be paired with a QR code that takes customers to the Refugee Week campaign on the Refugee Action webpage.

The money generated from the sales of the 'Welcome' bath bomb, will be put to Refugee Action, to provide those seeking refuge with services and to support humanitarian charities up and down the country.

Regarding the recent refugee policies proposed by the UK government, including the Rwanda Policy which set out to deport refugees and displaced people to Rwanda, Andrew Butler, the Campaigns Manager of Lush, said: "We will not stand quietly by as people fleeing war and persecution are scapegoated for failed government policies and cuts to social services. The language being used, and the policies being enacted against refugees are deeply worrying and highly dangerous."

In addition to the bath bombs and storefront messages, the lush stores will also boast a series of QR codes that customers can scan on their phones. After scanning the QR code, the consumers will be taken to an album of videos. The videos will follow the lives and journeys of three refugees, including Hein from Burma, Monique from the Caribbean, and Oksana from Ukraine.

"The powerful stories shared by the three people who have fled persecution and war perfectly illustrate why we need a compassionate and welcoming environment for refugees in the UK," Ali Noyce added.

Over 100 lush stores in the UK will also distribute postcards that will allow their customers and members of the public to write welcome messages to those who are seeking asylum in the UK.

In regard to the recent Rwanda Policy proposed by the UK government, which set out to deport refugees and displaced people to Rwanda, Andrew Butler, the Campaigns Manager of Lush, said: "We will not stand quietly by as people fleeing war and persecution are scapegoated for failed government policies and cuts to social services. The language being used and the policies being enacted against refugees are deeply worrying and highly dangerous."

Andrew Butler concluded that at Lush "we strongly oppose the hostile environment that is being used to persecute, marginalise and scapegoat refugees, and instead say, 'Wherever you're from, however, you got here, all refugees are welcome'".