Monday 18 June 2007

Sheffield becomes First City of Sanctuary

At the Refugee Week launch today, the Mayor of Sheffield announced that the City Council has pledged its support for City of Sanctuary. Sheffield has now become the first UK city to make a public commitment to welcoming asylum-seekers and refugees - the first 'City of Sanctuary'.

In his speech, the Mayor said, 'I'm pleased to announce today that the City Council declares its support for City of Sanctuary, this means that the City Council is now publicly committed to working with others to promote a welcoming city for asylum-seekers and refugees.'

There is still plenty of work to be done in encouraging other local organisations to become involved, and in working with the City Council and others on finding ways to translate this commitment into practice. But it is a major landmark in the movement to create a culture of hospitality for asylum-seekers and refugees, and I would like to thank everyone from the Meeting for their support over the last couple of years. We hope soon to begin discussions with groups in other cities to try to create Cities of Sanctuary around the UK.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like the clowns at Sheffield Council have found yet another way of wasting our money.

Dont be fooled, no one else in Sheffield has signed upto this, only the clowns of the council.

How about signing upto providing the services that we actually pay you for.

Craig Barnett said...

Hello friend, welcome to our Sheffield Quakers blog.

The City of Sanctuary movement has not come from the Council - it is made up of local people who want to take pride in the way that our city welcomes asylum-seekers and refugees. So far there are 65 local organisations which support City of Sanctuary - you can see the full list at:
http://www.cityofsanctuary.com/supporters

I'm sure you will be pleased to know that the Council is not supporting City of Sanctuary financially either - it is an independent charity.

Zoe Joyce said...

I suppose that people are reading about Sheffield Council supporting this and assuming that they mean financially supporting it.

I certainly think it is a good idea. It has my support.

There are a lot of myths and rumours about assyum seekers. It is good to see something positive.

Zoe Grace

Anonymous said...

I remember meeting members of the Chilean community in Sheffield in the 1980s and hearing something of their experiences of persecution and torture under the Pinochet dictatorship.

The same experiences continue today in other parts of the world. Congratulations to all the local organisations who have promoted and supported this initiative.

Ian Storr