On Sunday 28th October, we held the first of our new-style Community Meals, ‘The Big Conversation’.
Sunday’s event reflected our move to adopting a new style of events, and was the first of what will be bigger and better, quarterly community meals; where everyone is welcome, whatever your language and status, for a time of fun and friendship.
The aim of the event was to bring together different people from across Greater Manchester, to engage in discussions about how we can all improve our services, organisations and projects to be more welcoming and inclusive for people seeking sanctuary. Thank you to everyone who participated in these discussions in our ‘Conversation Room’ – we hope that this is the start of many more conversations on how we can work together to be a true ‘city of sanctuary’.
We were hosted by Manchester Art Gallery, who provided a wonderful space for us to eat food, meet new people, engage in conversations and listen to music.
The music was provided by the amazing Stone Flowers – a refugee torture survivor collective led by Music Action International. The band were set up upstairs in the gallery, which provided a beautiful setting for people to gather and enjoy their powerful 45-minute performance. It was quite a surprise for members of the public who had popped into the gallery for a quiet look around, only to find a 13-member band complete with bass and cellos!
Thank you to everyone that came, it was great seeing so many faces old and new, and we’re already very excited for the next event in January 2019 (date TBC).
