Refugee Tales shortlisted for National Award

The Refugee Tales project, co-organised by Professor David Herd in collaboration with Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, has been shortlisted for a Sheila McKechnie (SMK) National Campaigner Award 2024. The project is nominated in the Amplifying Voices category for its Walking Inquiry into Immigration Detention.

The UK is the only country in Western Europe to detain people indefinitely under immigration rules. As the nomination notes, people detained indefinitely cannot count down to a release date, they can only count up.  This has a devastating effect on mental health.

In 2020, a public inquiry began into the mistreatment of people detained at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, Gatwick.  Refugee Tales initiated the Walking Inquiry to complement the public inquiry and to enable a wider range of people to take part and make the case for change.

The voices and views of people with lived experience of detention were central to every aspect of the Walking Inquiry. Through walks, workshops, and online meetings, people detailed the impacts of immigration detention. Contributions were rich and varied, including testimony, visual artworks, letters, videos, prose, and poetry.

The Refugee Tales Walking Inquiry explicitly considered why people who have experienced detention are not heard in society and the many ways in which they are dehumanised, excluded, and silenced. The project’s report was launched in parliament, with MPs from all main parties speaking of the need for change. The report calls for an end to the cruel, arbitrary, and inhumane practice of immigration detention in the UK.