We walked and talked, we played and planted, sowed seeds and took chances. We feasted, shared tables, drank coffee, were entertained and went on an adventure. Refugee Week was a vibrant week full of colour!

We’re gathering together some of our output during Refugee Week, including articles, daily reflections, videos, pictures…and a few favourite social media posts. This is a dynamic page which will receive more additions over the next few days – so be sure to come back!

Menu

1. Blogs
   1. Tuesday
   2. Thursday
   3. Friday
2. Daily Reflection and Prayer
   1. Monday
   2. Tuesday
   3. Wednesday
   4. Thursday
   5. Friday
   6. Saturday
3. Videos
   1. Highlights from the week
   2. Welsh Refugee Council Celebrations
4. Posts
5. Gallery

Blogs

During the week, Fr Dean was blogging with reflections on the events of the week.

Tuesday

Thursday

Friday

Daily Reflection and Prayer

Each day, we celebrated Mass with a reflection of some aspect of the week based on the Bible readings of the day

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Videos

Refugee Week Promo

A video from Refugee Week which we shared at Mass on the first Sunday

Highlights from the week

Sit back and enjoy some highlights of the week from Sunday 16th to Sunday 23rd June

Welsh Refugee Council Celebrations

The Welsh Refugee Council’s celebration at Cardiff Central Library on Saturday 23 June was full of colour and music

The Great Get Together Barbecue

After our Sanctuary Sunday Mass we gathered with others for the Great Get Together Barbecue

St Mary’s School

A lovely video from St Mary’s school with highlights of a week…and a bit!

Sanctuary Alphabet

We played this wonderful film from St Mary’s School at the Sunday Mass on 16th June. It was premiered at last year’s Refugee Week celebrations.

Posts

Moorland Primary School in Splott made good use of our wildflower seeds.

This week, we also celebrated Windrush Day, and St Paul’s Primary School did what they do so well!

St Mary’s School have partnered with Blaenavon Heritage School during Refugee Week and this was the first time the pupils met with one another.

There was a wonderful celebration on Saturday with St Mary’s, St Paul’s and Tredegarville Primary Schools at the Wales Millennium Centre

Gallery

We snapped away so much during the week. Here are just some of the pics!

Make sure you return soon! We’ve still got a few more things to share over the next few days!

Funding

As part of our developing Faithful Butetown project we received a small grant from the UK Government’s Levelling Up Fund awarded by Cardiff Council’s Community Cohesion Team.

This meant that we could offer four free performances of the Betty Campbell play to 6 schools during Refugee Week. The rest of the grant will be used to further develop Faithful Butetown. More details about this exciting project coming soon!

He runs across the field to the bin, with a cupcake wrapper in his hand. He looks back across the field. “Look at all this trash,” he exclaims.

Minutes later, he’s running around collecting litter like it’s a game, filling the large black bag I carry. We are two litter collectors surrounded by fun and feasting. Soon we are three and then four. We’re later joined by a fifth. They are a few five year olds who take delight in collecting litter.

And then, in a lull from the litter collecting, he approaches me again, looks up from his less than four foot height.

“Fr Dean, am I Christian?”

“Yes, you are,” I say, smiling. He seems happy with that, and then darts off to deliver another scrap of paper to the refuse bag.

We’re at the Global Picnic at St Mary’s Primary School. Earlier in the afternoon, I gathered with hundreds of others in Grange Gardens for the Great Get Together Picnic with St Paul’s Primary School. Altogether, three Primary Schools fill the space. This is a well organised chaos of colour as members of staff keep an eager eye on all that is happening. Families have gathered too, their picnic blankets displaying a banquet of global flavours.

“You made it,” says one little lad. At St Paul’s School Mass earlier in the week, I’d said that I would do my best to get there, had hoped I would. During the Mass, we had taken a Refugee Week theme, and distributed packets of wildflower seeds to care for our home which is the world, and to scatter and spread a welcome for all who seek safety and sanctuary.

This week, they’ve supported Oasis in Splott through sponsored walks, “walking a mile in their shoes” to raise awareness and funds for the work Oasis does. Last night, a few of us gathered there for their Cultural Cabaret, heard the sounds of Iran and Morocco, and the stories of those who had journeyed far.

“Am I Christian?”

The little lad who asks this question is from a lovely Nigerian, Christian family, and it’s been a joy to accompany them on their journey of faith as he and his siblings receive communion each Sunday and during the School Mass at St Mary’s. For him and his younger brother, I break off a small piece of the host, place it into their hands.

He’s found himself in Cardiff for a little while, and landed in a multicultural community and school where there’s a number of different religions living and learning alongside one another. Faith is a common currency here. It’s easy to talk about as each of us tries to find our way in the world.

At the beginning of the week, our Justice Cafe met to welcome Jim Stewart from Open Doors. He shared the ‘Watch List’ of countries where Christians are most persecuted. More than 365 million Christians worldwide face persecution and discrimination for their faith – that’s one in seven believers. Many become refugees.

But refugees are formed by so many forces whether political or religious, or forced from their homes by environmental disasters or climate change.

Each day during Refugee Week, we have offered Mass, set all our activities in prayer. Monday’s Mass was offered for persecuted Christians. Yesterday’s Mass was for good relationships between people of different faiths. And today, we prayed for all who arrive in our communities seeking safety.

The Betty Campbell play for schools was performed to over 200 children, telling the story of Cardiff and Wales through the lens of her life, tackling issues such as racism and poverty, discrimination and immigration, economics and personal struggles. Sounds like General Election campaign except it was a bit more fun.

Back at home, I look out through my kitchen window, see the birds swooping down to pick up the pieces of the picnic left at St Mary’s School. The rest of the litter has been cleared by five year olds.

Some former pupils of the School have also called in today. They feel at home here, reconnect with their teachers as I realise afresh what effect teachers really have, and how much concern they have for those in their care. I am in awe of them.

“Am I Christian?”

How do we define ourselves? And when does this journey begin? This week has seen many journeys. We’ve walked through Butetown. We’ve welcomed children from other communities and schools. And we have imagined the journey of those who have travelled an ever greater distance, dangerous and sometimes deadly, trafficked and taken for granted, often for a fee.

Tonight, I think about my own five year old memories, and I can’t pin any down to any precise moment in time. I imagine that I never asked the question of anyone, “Am I Christian?”

But here, it is a safe place to ask that question. It’s a place where we can create space to explore.

Our landscape is so often littered with many distractions and so much rubbish. In between, perhaps we can pause, ask the questions that really matter. Learn from one another. And begin to discover who we really are.

“If you wasn’t a Christian, and you couldn’t be a Christian, what religion would you be?” She casually throws the question into the journey as we walk closer to Cardiff Bay.

It’s quite some question to be asked by an eleven year old. At the beginning of the day, as we left the Betty Campbell statue in the city centre, she’d asked simpler questions like “Do you believe in God?”

“Do you believe in God?” I asked her in return as we made our way closer to Butetown.

She squinted as she looked up at me, the sun shining in her eyes. She shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s ok,” I said. “Lots of people believe lots of different things. It’s good to have questions about life, and to explore, and to not know sometimes.”

Later in the day, after watching the Betty Campbell play, other questions are asked of Kim, the actor who plays her.

“If, as a young person, you could say one thing to Betty Campbell what would it be?” asks another eleven year old.

What a question.

“I would say, ‘Thank you,’ says Kim. ‘Thank you for fighting and standing up for things and changing things.’”

We’re at the back end of Refugee Week with just a few days left as we merge into the ‘Great Get Together’ celebrations. It’s been a full week so far and there is plenty more to come.

Meanwhile, as I write much later in the day, various political party leaders are being questioned on the TV by audience members, putting them under the spotlight, holding them to account in the General Election marathon.

It’s not long before the question of Immigration arises. It’s a key issue for leaders and electors. Emotive and sometimes divisive, with mixed rhetoric and huge consequences.

Questions are important. Dialogue is essential.

There is something about walking which makes the conversation flow. I listen in on the conversations between the children. Funny, amusing, sometimes touching. They’re talking about chocolate now. It soon moves on to something else. If only we could walk together more often.

There’s a quick visit to the Mosque, and we’re grateful to Saeed who warmly welcomes us whilst the Imam is on holidays. As we leave, and replace our shoes, one or two of the children linger with questions. Inquisitive. Interested. Wanting to know more.

But we have to move on. It’s time to move on. They return their shoes to their feet.

We end our journey at the water’s edge. The statue of the Rugby Codebreakers is silhouetted in the slight distance against a sky-blue sky. I tell them something of their story and Billy Boston’s fame but they are tired now. They’re a fifth of my age, and their legs seem more weary than mine.

“Are your shoes comfortable?” asked one girl just after we left the Betty Campbell statue, four hours and a mile earlier.

“Yes. They’re comfortable.”

“They don’t look comfortable,” she said.

I smiled.

“They’re good for walking,” I replied.

On Tuesday, when we welcomed a school from Blaenavon, we stopped at the statue of Gandhi, and told them the story of his sandals.

He was boarding a train and one of his sandals fell off as the train sped away. He took off his remaining sandal and threw it onto the tracks. Having one sandal was no good to him and no good to whoever found the other. Far better that someone had two sandals.

At least I had two shoes, whether or not they looked comfortable.

Now, as the children board their coach, my shoes seem to have done the job, and I’ve still to make the walk back home, back through Butetown.

“Would you like a coffee?” I’m asked on returning to St Mary’s.

The two schools for the afternoon performance of the Betty Campbell play have just left and I manage to see them as they leave, some high fives along the way.

“Would you like a coffee?”

Of all the questions of the day, that was the easiest to answer.

When I get home, I kick off my shoes.

Both of them.

“How long was your journey?“ I ask. They’ve just spilled out of the coach. A large group of children are gathered on the wide pavement outside St Mary’s Church.

“52 minutes,” quickly responds one lad. He’s obviously had his eye on the clock from start to finish, from the moment the coach pulled out from Blaenavon to the time they now take their first steps into Butetown.

Yes, one time-conscious lad knows exactly how long it took to travel. 52 minutes.

Blaenavon is 28 miles away from Butetown, and was built on iron and coal, growing from the first Ironworks established there in 1788 and which was then taken over by the Blaenavon Coal and Iron Company in 1836. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and many people will be familiar with its Big Pit National Coal Museum.

Time is against us today with the 52 minute journey to Butetown and back, and we don’t get the opportunity to visit the Betty Campbell statue in the City Centre but we do get the chance to see the performance of the play for schools from Mewn Cymeriad, “Betty Campbell: a journey through Butetown.”

It’s a play that’s been performed quite a few times here at St Mary’s Church for different schools which is quite apt. It was here, in Butetown, that she lived and worked. She was the first Black Headteacher in Wales, and the first named woman to have a statue in a public place. It was also here, in St Mary’s, where she worshipped. Her life was quite a journey.

If we’d had time to visit the statue today, the children would have seen a beautifully rich image created by Eve Shepherd which includes so many details, and in which they would have discovered a connection, including a coal cart or two.

“What is Blaenavon famous for?” I ask as they settle into church.

“Heritage,” they say.

“What heritage?”

“Mining. Coal,” they respond.

“Cardiff as we know it today was built on coal,” I say. “The coal was dug from Blaenavon and other valleys communities and sent out to the world. This community wouldn’t exist without your community.”

That’s the connection.

Two different communities with a common past, a linked heritage. Each reliant on the other.

In a novel by Alexander Cordell, called ‘Peerless Jim Driscoll,’ about the Irish boxer of the old neighbouring community of Newtown
there is a strike in the mining industry of the South Wales valleys, and here in the Docks they are beginning to feel its effects as work and money became tight. ‘When they sneeze, we cough,’ said Jim Driscoll.

Yes, we are interconnected. We needed each other then. We need each other now.

This week, we are celebrating many things, particularly Refugee Week. The theme this year is “Our Home.” It’s a beautifully simple theme but one that is so rich and poignant. What does home mean to us? And whose home is it anyway? How do we respond to those who have to leave their home to seek a safe space? Those who arrive at our borders, in our country, our communities, our street, our school? How do we appreciate the long and laboured journey they have made, and which some, sadly, never completed?

We are just 52 minutes apart from Blaenavon, and yet life is so different there, with its own unique changes and challenges, its own benefits and blessings, its own history and heritage. And yet we are connected.

We are connected by coal.

But there is more.

Far more.

After the Betty Cambell Play, and time to play with their new twinned friends at the playground of St Mary’s School, we make our way through Butetown, stopping at the Mosque, and onwards to the place now known more widely as Cardiff Bay.

The children rush to the water tower feature which stands outside the Wales Millennium Centre. Alongside children from St Mary’s School, they exhibit so many other connections.

Together they splash in the water, take delight in the coolness it gives beneath the unusual heat of the sun. They want the same things. Laughter, fun, play, mischievousness, wet hair and damp clothes which will soon dry in the kind weather. They’re just children, just having fun.

In this moment, there is little that separates them.

A little time later, after a quick circuit through the Bay, passing the Merchant Navy War Memorial in the shadow of the Senedd, we wait for their coach at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi.

As the teachers count in each child onto the coach, all 51 of them, I wonder if they will meet or match their 52 minute journey home.

Butetown and Blaenavon. So different. Yet, in so many ways, much the same, give or take 52 minutes and 28 miles.

When they cough, we sneeze.

It’s the same the whole world over.