Refugee Communities History Project

The Refugee Stories Project (funded by Heritage Lottery Fund and City Parochial Foundation) is the second phase of the award winning Refugee Communities History Project which ran in partnership between Evelyn Oldfield Unit, Museum of London, London Metropolitan University and 15 Refugee Community Organisations and was funded by Trust for London and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

In the initial project, each RCO hosted and supported a fieldworker employed to work with their community. The project collected over 150 in depth oral history interviews with refugees from the 15 communities it worked with. The resulting collection of interviews, archived at the Museum of London, constitute an extraordinary and unrivalled collection of testimony based material on the subject of refugees in the UK. In addition the project has produced a variety of resources based upon the material collected including a website, CD ROMs, a short film collection and a mobile exhibition.

These materials constitute the basis of the Refugee Stories Project. The aim of this second phase is to counter negative images of recent arrivals through public education work and to empower refugee and migrant organisations to carry out their own oral history and heritage projects. The project will achieve this through:

• increasing understanding of the experiences and contribution of refugees amongst school aged students and the general public,
• increasing access of schools to resources about refugees which fit in with the national curriculum,
• engendering pride amongst people from refugee backgrounds.

The Refugee Stories Project will achieve its aims and objectives by delivering workshops and distributing resources (including a CDs, DVDs, a mobile exhibition and learning resource pack), showing refugees’ achievements and contribution to London.

• to get involved as a volunteer and help with the delivery of the project
• to teach your students and teachers more about refugees, the struggles they encounter, their survival and the contributions they make to the society
• advice and support to carry out your own community oral history project

Please contact the project coordinator Frohar Poya Faryabi on 020 77008143 or frohar@evelynoldfield.co.uk

To find out more about the free educational resources available and listen to some of the interviews or to download the project’s final report please visit the project’s website www.refugeestories.org