The City of Sanctuary movement has been growing all over the country over the last few months. Here are just a few of the latest developments. Find out more, or make contact with your local group though our website: www.cityofsanctuary.org

Oxford City Council Pledges Support

On 6th October Oxford City Council passed a motion to support Oxford in its bid to become a ‘City of Sanctuary.' The motion called on Oxford City Council to practically support efforts to make Oxford a place of safety for people whose lives have been threatened, and to celebrate the contributions that asylum seekers and refugees make to society.

Amy Merone, a member of the working group in Oxford, said, "We believe that City of Sanctuary is a way in which the people of Oxford can practically demonstrate their commitment to being a city of welcome and to the upholding of people's human rights. There has never been a more important time as now for this with the presence of Campsfield Removal Centre and the proposed centre in Bicester."

Bristol City of Sanctuary Launched

The Bristol City of Sanctuary group held their public launch on Thursday 23rd October at the wonderful Pierian Centre. It was attended by the deputy Chief Executive of the City Council, representatives of refugee organisations and faith communities.

At the meeting, local residents referred to Bristol's role in the transatlantic slave trade, and proposed City of Sanctuary as one way of transforming that legacy into a positive vision for the city.

London, Olympic City of Sanctuary for 2012

On 12th November London became the latest city to launch a City of Sanctuary group, with an ambitious aim to build a grassroots, city-wide movement of support for people seeking sanctuary in the capital.

Coventry City of Sanctuary Launched

On 25th September at the Coventry 'Council House' (Town Hall) Coventry's own movement to become an official City of Sanctuary was launched by the Mayor Andy Matchet.

At a packed meeting (which someone described to me as the best attended they had ever been to in Coventry), participants were asked to share their ideas on how to build support for people seeking sanctuary throughout the city, including schools, employers, and local media.

During the summer, I'm sure you will have noticed that the City of Sanctuary website has been particularly slow, culminating in several days of being entirely unavailable over the last fortnight.  This has been due to the very poor performance of the company we were using to host our website.

Conference News

People representing groups from over 20 towns and cities, from Glasgow to Portsmouth, came to our first City of Sanctuary national conference on 4th June to share ideas about how to build their own local Cities (Towns or Villages) of Sanctuary.

Want to Become a City of Sanctuary?

Book your free place at the City of Sanctuary National Conference
Wednesday 4th June 2008, 11am - 4.30pm,
Sheffield

Find out how Sheffield has become the UK's first official ‘City of Sanctuary' for asylum-seekers and refugees.
Share information and ideas with other new City of Sanctuary groups around the country.
Explore how you can build a grassroots City of Sanctuary movement in your own town or city.
To book a free place or for more information please contact us.

Norwich City of Refuge

In 2007 Norwich became the first UK city to join the International Cities of Refuge Network (www.icorn.org). Through this scheme, Norwich offers residency to politically exiled writers who have been denied freedom of speech in their home countries.
Norwich City of Refuge has now joined the national City of Sanctuary movement, in order to share their experience of building community programmes on issues of human rights and asylum more widely throughout the UK.

Website News

See our national website at www.cityofsanctuary.org for news of City of Sanctuary groups around the country. To see local news for each city just choose the relevant link on the left sidebar. Recent articles include ‘action ideas' for City of Sanctuary groups, sharing ideas which have been successful in other cities.
You can also read our ‘blogs' written by asylum-seekers, refugees, and their friends and supporters. If you would like to write your own blog on the website please get in touch - it is easy to publish direct to the site, and support is available from our Web-guru Mark Gibbens.

New Worker at City of Sanctuary

Nicola Freeman is our new Communications and Administration Worker, who started work at the City of Sanctuary office this month. You can contact her with enquiries, suggestions, news and events for publicising, or just for a chat by contacting: nicola@cityofsanctuary.org