As part of the Journeys Festival, we facilitated the 'Conversation Corner' event on 08 October. Through this event we led a discussion with John Tomlinson and Emily Ntshangase-Wood from the play production 'Tanja'. This play is about a woman who is detained in Yarl's Wood detention centre and describes the situation of asylum seekers who are detained indefinitely.
We hosted a focus group session for TS4SE at our office on 20 September. TS4SE is an organisation that provides training and support for services and exiles, and they ran the session for the purpose of identifying health care needs for Syrian refugees within the community.
Councillor John Leech raised some questions on 5 October before Manchester City Council regarding its intake of Syrian refugees. His questions revealed that Manchester City Council has yet to take in a single Syrian refugee under the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme.
In preparation for EU Parliament's debate on Syria, Rethink Rebuild Society sent some talking points to MEP Afzal Khan, some of which he incorporated into his speech in EU Parliament on 5 October. Afzal called directly for the establishment of a no-fly zone and for sanctions against Russia and Iran.
We gathered in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester on Saturday 1st October 2016 to protest against the massacres acted by Assad and Russian jets killing hundreds of civilians in Aleppo and its countryside.
We hosted an awareness-raising gathering at Saladin mosque in Manchester on Saturday 1st October 2016. The purpose of that gathering was for members of the Syrian community to get to know each other and for the youth to strengthen their ties to the community as well.
Assad and Russia's attacks against civilians in Syria are at their worst yet. Syrians need us to step up to lobby on their behalf!
We submitted a letter to MP Jeremy Corbyn on 30 September congratulating him on his re-election as the leader of the Labour Party and urging him to make civilian protection the focus on his policy on Syria.
We were delighted to take part in a panel in an event in European Parliament on 29 September titled 'Muslims in Europe: Untold Success Stories'. The event was hosted by Afzal Khan MEP and our contribution pertained to the positive roles that Syrian refugees have played within European society. A warm thank you to MEP Afzal Khan for inviting us to take part in this event.
We participated in an in-depth interview by BBC Radio 4 programme's 'The Briefing Room' looking at the status of the ceasefire in Syria. We participated along with Ambassador Fred Hof of the Rafik Hariri Foundation, Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute, and Dr. Christopher Phillips from Queen Mary University.
Rethink Rebuild Society
First Floor
Discovery House
Crossley Road
Manchester
SK4 5BH
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 161 222 9779
Mobile: +44 7730 194083