In mid-June this year, there are two powerful weeks of action: Great Big Green Week and Refugee Week. Great Big Green Week is all about coming together as a community to take climate action and take care of our environment at a local level. The theme for this year’s Great Big Green Week is “let’s swap together for good”. Refugee Week is a festival of arts and culture where people of different backgrounds come together to celebrate the resilience and achievements of refugees and asylum seekers. It’s celebrated on a global scale, giving a platform for people all over the world to tell their stories and the chance to grow public understanding of the challenges that refugees and asylum seekers face. The theme for this year’s Refugee Week is “Community as a Superpower”.
This year, Great Big Green Week will be taking place from 7th to 15th June and Refugee Week will be taking place from 16th to 22nd June. We have decided to host a joint celebration of these two weeks of action by running an event on the weekend in-between. The event is called “Celebrating CommUnity” and will take place on Saturday 14 June from 12:30-6:30PM at our community building, The Warehouse.
The event will be split into three sessions. It will begin with an informal craft and chat session, where guests can help us colour in a Friends of the Earth rainforest mural, create trees and animals with scrap materials to add to our 3D rainforest, add a message to our ‘Keep Forests, Don’t Deforest!’ banner, and more! This will be an ideal opportunity for attendees to talk to us about our current Planet Over Profit and Big Climate Plan campaigns. Once this session ends at 2:30PM, we will have a break for half an hour.
Following the break, from 3-5PM, there will be a speaker session. Confirmed speakers are as follows:
- Chris Martin – Footsteps, Faiths for a Low Carbon Future
- Daniella Southin – campaigner discussing the true cost of fast fashion
- Loraine Mponela – Migrant Voice
- Emily Quiney – former Birmingham STAR member
- Catherine Williams – Birmingham Friends of the Earth
- Carolyn Morton – Compost Culture
In the spirit of swapping for Great Big Green Week, we will be having a potluck dinner social to round off the day. From 5:00-6:30PM, attendees are invited to bring their favourite dish/snack to share with others to celebrate different cultures and cuisines. If you’re not in a position to bring any food to share, you’re still welcome to stay and chat with like-minded people over some food!
Throughout the day, there will be access to free refreshments (hot and cold drinks, as well as a selection of snacks). We will also be running ‘Conversation Corner’, where guests can have a chat with us about climate inaction and the future of a sustainable Birmingham to get their voice heard. We will be using quotes and ideas from these conversations in our social media and in future discussions with the MPs for Birmingham.
In running this event, we hope to raise awareness and support for our Planet Over Profit campaign whilst amplifying the voices of local organisations and campaigners who are working tirelessly to tackle the climate crisis and support migrants, refugees and asylum seekers on a local level.
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Written by Catherine Williams
Image Credit: People Assembly Characters designed by 8bitfaz
