Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity, and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Through a programme of arts, cultural, sports, and educational events alongside media and creative campaigns, Refugee Week enables people from different backgrounds to connect.

The theme of Refugee Week 2022 was ‘Healing’, and members of UiD alongside trustees and volunteers celebrated with a trip to Port Eynon in collaboration with other Swansea-based charities.

UiD decided to approach the theme of ‘Healing’ and connect it with the healing abilities that nature can have on us and organised a trip to Port Eynon!. Port Eynon, is a village and community with the Swansea and is the most southerly point on Gower. Despite the sad weather, the group enjoyed a tour of the remains of the Port Eynon Castle as well as a visit to Salt House and Smuggles’s cave.

Whether it’s about looking after ourselves and each other at difficult times, overcoming political divisions, coming together to fight for the survival of our shared beautiful planet, healing matters to all of us. It can be hard to heal from trauma. Art, creativity, community, and nature can help us find peace in ourselves and guide us through the hard times. And for refugees, healing can be about finding safety in a new community and making new memories in the place they found themselves to be in. UiD members took it upon themselves to combine nature and art, and created beach art!