Refugee Week 2025
Solidarity with people seeking sanctuary
Our Refugee Week programme brings together our teaching and research with the lived experiences of those seeking sanctuary.
Open to all, our events and activities will explore challenges to inequalities, and foster mattering, belonging and inclusivity.
The 2025 theme is Community as a Superpower, and the role we play as a University community has never been more important, promoting the vision that everyone should be able to live safely in inclusive and welcoming environments.
Refugee Week events
18 June: Film screening, 11am to 2pm, Esther Simpson Building
Join us for a free film screening event, featuring of two powerful short films and a documentary exploring important themes for Refugee Week.
Short films curated by Other Cinemas and Counterpoint Arts will be shown, celebrating the ways we build and sustain our community in the face of displacement and adversity.
We will also feature the BAFTA-longlisted documentary Hostile (2022), which details UK immigration policies and their impact on migrant communities.
There will be time after the screening for discussion.
The screening will take place in Esther Simpson LG.08. No booking is required.
19 June: Migration Journeys, 11am to 3.30pm, Esther Simpson Building
Join us for a day of learning and sharing around the theme of solidarity.
This free event will include:
- testimonies from asylum seekers
- a course on telling our stories
- discussions on issues affecting displaced people
- a photography exhibition
- a lived experiences panel
- poetry readings
- a networking lunch.
Booking is essential - places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.
Book your ticket for Migration Journeys on the Ticket Tailor website.
The event will be held in Esther Simpson SR 3.01.
19 June: Online roundtable - Refugee protection amid global displacement and asylum contestation, 10am to 11.30am
This online roundtable will bring together scholars from sociology, migration studies and international law to critically examine the shifting terrain of refugee protection amid rising displacements, securitisation and erosion of international norms.
The discussion will explore how contemporary refugee regimes are being reshaped by geopolitical interests, radicalised border practices and the externalisation of asylum responsibilities.
It will also consider the lived experiences of refugees navigating these hostile environments, and the forms of resistance, resiliance and solidarity that emerge in response.
Until June 30: Refugee Week Special Collection, Laidlaw Library
Our Refguee Week Special Collection will be on display at the Laidlaw Library until 30 June.
As well as a dedicated refugee display, there is a refugee book collection and Refugee Week Reading List. This includes archives on cultural collections specific to migration, film and television shows and resources and local organisations supporting refugees and asylum seekers.
University of Sanctuary
The University of Leeds is working towards University of Sanctuary status.
Commemorating Refugee Week is part of our three-year Sanctuary Action Plan.
For more information, contact the Sanctuary Working Group: sanctuary@leeds.ac.uk.