On January 16th, at an event organised by Swansea City of Sanctuary in partnership with the African Community Centre (ACC) project HarMINDise, three schools came together in the National Waterfront Museum to consider ways to improve health and well-being for children and young adults.

The theme was children of asylum seekers and refugees, and the aim was to learn more about their situation and to improve understanding and communication.

The three schools represented in the event were Terrace Road Primary School, St Joseph’s Cathedral Primary School and Ysgol Gyfun Gŵyr. These schools have either received the School of Sanctuary Award or are working towards it!

A talk was given by Tarh Martha Ako from her own experience on how important it was in schools to give a welcome to children arriving from a dangerous country. Otis also gave a talk, illustrating his with a t-shirt printed with the names of the people and organisations locally that had helped him when he was seeking sanctuary.

St Joseph’s Cathedral Primary School and Ysgol Gyfun Gŵyr gave very interesting, illustrated presentations on their activities, how they had learned more about seeking sanctuary and how they had shared this.

Workshops were led by Ruth Castle, Swansea City Council’s lead for Schools of Sanctuary, also Elaine Rees and Martha, SCoS management committee members. There were wide-ranging discussions on how to improve understanding of and welcome to children of asylum seekers and refugees.

Chinyere of the ACC HarMINDise project gave a closing speech about the aims of the project and what had been gained so far.

The lunch was catered by Amber Esther, a former Co-Chair of Swansea City of Sanctuary. Thank you, Amber!

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Thank you to Carys Davies for writing this blog, and to all our volunteers who were involved with the organising of this event!