This year is Refugee Tales’ 10 year anniversary. To celebrate we are organising the Refugee Tales Festival of Walking. Here is a summary written by David Herd, Co-Editor of Refugee Tales:

 2025 sees the 10th Anniversary of Refugee Tales. To mark this moment the project will stage The Refugee Tales Festival of Walk - still calling for a future without detention, still calling, as an urgent first step, for an end to indefinite detention.

We are not yet able to celebrate a change of law. 10 years since we first issued our call for change, the UK is still the only country in Western Europe that detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. It is still a scandal. The need for a change of law is more pressing than ever.

But if the policy change we walk for hasn’t yet occurred, so much has been achieved through the project’s walking. Week by week, the Refugee Tales Self-Advocacy group takes the call for change directly to politicians. Year by year, the project’s network of solidarity has extended and is now international in scope. The stories, shared in the first person and in collaboration with writers, and first heard in the context of the walking community, have travelled the world, establishing Refugee Tales as a space in which better imagining can happen.

This year, as we circle London, starting in Southwark and following the Capital Ring, we will celebrate the continued commitment of Refugee Tales. We will salute those who have so bravely shared their stories in calling for change. We will welcome back writers, musicians, film-makers and hosts who have demonstrated solidarity. We will hold a series of panels which will state loudly and clearly why we must have a future without detention, why, as matter of urgency, indefinite detention must end.

Refugee Tales, as we have repeatedly said, is A Walk in Solidarity with Refugees, people seeking asylum and people who have experienced immigration detention. In this 10th Anniversary year, we mark the fact that the project continues to walk. We renew our call on the UK government to recognise its commitments under human rights. We celebrate the project’s commitment to a politics of welcome.

Thank you for joining the Refugee Tales Festival of Walking.

Tickets:

• Full Walker 5-Day ticket: which covers 5 guided walks, overnight accommodation, breakfasts, lunches, evening meals, and all evening events. Please note that walkers who wish to stay with us overnight must be 18+. To walk without a guardian, people must be 18+ or 16+ with written consent from a guardian.

• Day Walk tickets - which covers a guided walk, an evening meal and entry to the evening event. You are welcome to book multiple Day Walk tickets if you wish to organise your own accomodation.

• Walk Ambassador Tickets: In our 10th anniversary year we offer 10 Ambassador Tickets at half price for anyone who sets up a Just Giving page to fundraise for Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group. To access these tickets, please contact lara@gdwg.org.uk