Posted on: 7th December 2022

Leeds City Museum are running a project where we want to mark World Refugee Day on the 20th of June 2023 and Refugee Week and raise awareness for people who have come to Leeds to seek sanctuary. We want to listen, show compassion, offer support, and give refugee communities a platform, so we can come together to celebrate contributions to culture, art and the city. We are inviting individuals, groups, and school children across Leeds to make their own sunflowers, which will be displayed in the Brodrick Hall at Leeds City Museum during World Refugee Week, 20th June – 25th June.

As part of the project, I am working with the Refugee Council to share information on what it is like to be a refugee or someone seeking asylum, to share stories, combat fake news and fight existing discrimination with information and compassion.

Throughout the project staff aim to offer work and volunteer placement opportunities and facilitate workshops for groups to create their own sunflowers, handle objects from museum collections and promote our free access offer to our Leeds Museum and Galleries for anyone from refugee communities. Throughout the year we may also be able to offer bespoke site visits for groups by our team of curators.

Please see attached a copy of the project flyer, if you would like any physical copies of this flyer sent to your sites / and/or departments please let us know a delivery location and preferred number and we can get some sent to you.

Also attached is the Volunteer placement for the project which hopes to empower individuals to assist in the facilitation of craft and object handling based workshops within Leeds Communities. Individuals will be supported throughout the role to develop skills, confidence and knowledge and we have worked hard to simplify the application to make it accessible. Application / interview will be an interactive workshop day facilitated by colleagues. The day will consist of refreshments, refugee training by the Refugee Council and volunteer training by volunteer lead Karen Mackie. We can assist anyone with queries in regards to the volunteer placement.

If you have any groups that it would be good to offer a sunflower making and object handling session, please get in touch. As the project is into the new year, workshops will likely be held between February to June to ensure time for installation of the flowers. Availability will depend on the availability of staff and volunteers.

 We do hope this project will be of interest to you and something you would be interested in. If you could please share with any colleagues that may be interested. 

 Please let us know if it is something your organisation would like to be involved in and staff are happy to chat and adapt the process to the needs of individual groups.

With Thanks in advance,

Sapphia Cunningham-Tate
Sapphia.Cunningham-Tate@leeds.gov.uk