Dear all,
I hope this email finds you well. My name is Niovi Vavoula and I am a research assistant and Ph.D. candidate at Queen Mary, University of London. The reason I am writing to you is with regard to the #RefugeesWelcome initiative of our university to provide practical help to asylum seekers and refugees in the UK and bring together different organisations and practitioners working with refugees from different perspectives.
In particular, the #RefugeesWelcome initiative is materialised in a Refugee Week, scheduled for mid-February (15-18 February), whereby we will welcome refugees and asylum seekers at our University and offer advice sessions concerning three main areas; access to legal aid, access to education and recognition of qualifications (doctors, teachers, lawyers and engineers). These sessions will take place on the 15th and 16th February and will be a great opportunity for refugees and asylum seekers to be informed about the resources available in a friendly environment and for organisations to promote their work, gain more visibility and establish synergies and further collaboration with our University if they wish so. For instance, we aim at further promoting volunteering of QMUL students to human rights organisations, particularly those that wish to be part of our Refugee Week.
In addition, from an academic perspective, Prof. François Crépeau, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights of migrants, will deliver a lecture on the criminalisation of migrants (17th February) (also the Annual Lecture of our unique LLM in Immigration Law and of our Criminal Justice Centre).
Finally, on the 18th February, the film 'Leave to Remain' will be screened for free followed by Q&A with the Director and a keynote speech by Prof. Elspeth Guild.
I am referring in particular to those academics, practitioners and activists in Refugee law who are active in the UK and specifically in London. Of course, any help that we could receive is more than welcome!
I would like to kindly ask you for your help to further promote these events among refugee communities in London. Our primary purpose is to welcome at QMUL as many refugees and asylum seekers as possible, to serve food on both days of the open sessions and to give them information on different aspects of their everyday challenges in adjusting to life in the UK. Therefore, any help we could receive so as to draw attention to these events from the people for whom these sessions are for, would be great for us. I am happy to receive any information about refugee communities to contact them directly.
Furthermore, if you are working on any of the advice sessions fields (legal aid, access to education or recognition of qualifications) and you are interested in our events or you know someone who could be interested in participating as a speaker to these sessions (nothing formal, just a short presentation of what you are doing and the challenges that refugees face in having access to justice, education or labour market), I am also happy to discuss with them and explain more about this initiative via email: [log in to unmask] or over the phone. The success of these sessions and their possible re-running in the future depends on the assistance by the organisations helping refugees.
For further information, please find web links below:
http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/events/items/169298.html
http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/events/items/168600.html
http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/events/items/169239.html
Apologies for my rather extensive email and for possible cross-posting.
Best regards,
Niovi Vavoula
Research Assistant (Queen Mary, University of London - School of Law)
Ph.D. Candidate in EU Immigration and Criminal law
Coordination Assistant to the European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN)
Editorial Assistant to the New Journal of European Criminal Law (NJECL)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Note: The material contained in this communication comes to you from the Forced Migration Discussion List which is moderated by the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the RSC or the University. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this message please retain this disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Posting guidelines: http://www.forcedmigration.org/research-resources/discussion/forced-migration-discussion-list-posting-guidelines
Subscribe/unsubscribe: http://tinyurl.com/fmlist-join-leave
List Archives: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/forced-migration.html
RSS: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?RSS&L=forced-migration
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/refugeestudies
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/refugeestudiescentre
|