Events and Communities

Our Events and Communities team are the public face of CWR. We organise fun and inclusive events to serve both the Syrian families and the wider community. Our mission is to improve integration by simply helping people meet up and chat!

Since 2020, working with the University of Gloucestershire Refugee Society, we’ve been hosting online ‘Conversations’ with people working with refugees and on the subject of human rights and migration - check out our video recordings here. We’ve also been hosting a book group in association with Lives of Colour!

Our History

A key part of CWR’s usual work has been our Summer Picnic, which we’ve held annually every year since 2016 with the assistance of the University of Gloucestershire and the Everyman Theatre. It’s been a huge boost for public engagement and social integration, and is always fun for everyone - we’ve been really sorry to miss out on it this year.

We further developed the Events and Communities team in 2018 to provide a more dynamic National Refugee Week program - including a storytelling night, a dance party, and a film screening, with the help of The Swan Cheltenham, The Sober Parrot, and the Scandinavian Coffee Pod. The Everyman Theatre kindly put on circus skills workshops during the half-term holiday for the families, as well as giving art workshops at our Summer Picnic.

For 2019, we increased our program to involve a cookery workshop and quiz night, as well as working with other local organisations and businesses including the Wilson Gallery and Waterstones to give wider promotion and venue access across Cheltenham. We also held an amazingly successful Eid party for the first time, with 100 attendees from over 14 different countries!

Our events are mostly virtual now and our community work continues. If you’d like to get involved in work of this capacity, please email us at chelt.refugees.community@gmail.com. In the meantime, please head over to our Events calendar to find out what’s happening next!