When he’s not cooking up delicious dishes, RASAG member Mustafa is capturing the best bits of the City of Sanctuary Party on video.
Here it is!
Tag Archives: event
Sheffield City of Sanctaury and Sheffield Quakers teamed up to create a showcase of talent from around Sheffield, with refugees, asylum seekers, Quakers and other community members taking the opportunity to perform and support each other in a highly successful and unique event. RASAG had a range of roles within the event; we provided all of the savoury food including fish, kookoo, biryani and dolma – many thanks to Nzazi, Sagheer, Azizeh and Mustafa for their work. One of our members teamed up with Quaker Friend Rosie to MC the event – well done Spag. RASAG member Goran performed with his band Jakam Jar Bu – great to see evryone dancing and enjoying the music – thanks Goran and Rasul. A group of us also performed a story from the Legends storytelling project – big thanks to Firas who told the story and Lemlem, Azizeh and Shiran for bringing it to life!
Many thanks again to Daniel Humble for his work on the RASAG Eid party – a site of pictures from the party is available here – if you were at the party and would like to order copies of the picture please contact Dan – his details are on the picture page.
Public Speaking – Scarier Than Death?
11 Nov
RASAG members were given tickets to a Sheffield United Game
The RASAG group have been busy as ever… Courtesy of FURD, several members attended a football match at Bramwell Lane Sheffield. Two members, Firas and Shiran, went on to speak on stage at the Showroom Cinema about the match as part of Sheffield Converation Club’s “Off The Shelf “event, which saw Phil Vasili reading from his book about Walter Tull – one of Britain ’s first black professional footballers in the early 1900s. We are looking forward to receiving some photo’s of both events so that we can add them to the blog.
The following week, FURD organised several tickets to view the film Africa United at the Showroom – participating members really enjoyed watching the film. Firas said of it
“It is really nice film and I know now allot about African people and I know how African people love football. The film show many thinks not just about football, and I think the film is suitable for children and adults and all family but unfortunately it shows many violence views”
RASAG members enjoyed a free trip to the cinema
Last Saturday four RASAG members joined together with members of other community groups to enjoy a day of free public speaking training organised by City of Sanctuary and delivered by Speakers Bank trainer. Jen Skapeti. The group really enjoyed the day and felt much more confident in speaking at the end of it. This was a really excellent course which was well structured and delivered. As part of the group, RASAG members often have to speak in public with little or no preperation time. Firstly, during the Legends Project, members were up on stage sharing stories with only one day’s training under their belt. Since then, members have been required to speak at events such as the You Choose funding event and at the “Off the Shelf” festival mentioned above; considering English is not their first language and many of us confess to public speaking being our worst fear, above illness, povety and even death, this training will prove invaluable – thanks Speakers Bank!
Four RASAG members enjoyed the training
You Choose – RASAG!!
27 Sep
The event was at the Quaker meeting house
RASAG were very happy and excited to come first at the You Choose funding event organised by the Central Community Assembly on 25th September. It was our first time competing live for funding and we all felt a bit nervous. It was also unfortunate that our name appeared wrong on the info sheet and voting form, but we made sure to point that out to voters! We opened our bid with an impromptu RASAG song from Goran, and we filled the rest of our three minutes with with me talking about what RASAG has done so far and Firas expounding the impact the group has had on his life - the audience must have enjoyed it because there were only a few voters who didn’t give us one of their 8 votes!
The £1000 kindly awarded to us by the Community Assembly will be used to devlop the RASAG identity including membership ID cards, supporters cards and a database to record those working with us, a web domain to start developing a website, and of course, a giant party to launch ourselves to service providers and communities throughout central Sheffield - watch this space for your invite!
See here for details of Sheffield’s Central Community Assembly
http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/in-your-area/community-assemblies/central
Shef Factor – Talent Contest
22 Sep
Goran singing
As a taster of the great talent and diversity of the Shef Factor event, I would like to introduce you to a star of the future – Pallav Roy. Pallav is a British boy who has bags of talent and kindly turned out with his family to support Sheffield’s City of Sanctuary. Here he is with two songs at the talent show remember you saw him here first!
Eid Party Pictures
20 Sep
Dancing to Jakam Jar Bu
- Ahmed and Goran in traditional costume
Happy Eid From Rasag!
16 Sep
Some of the people who helped to organise and enjoyed the party
Many thanks to Goran and the rest of the RASAG team for a very successful Happy Eid party on the 11th September in the Sharrow Old Junior School Hall. RASAG were granted £250.00 from the Shine on Sharrow fund, for which we are very grateful. RASAG laid on food, including Kurdish dolma, made by friends of Goran, fish and rice by Nzazi, a range of lovely dishes from Sujata and a large bucket of biryani from Sagheer – thanks guys! Music was provided by Yakam Jar Bu, and they had us all up dancing together – great to see so many different races and Nationalities enjoying a boogie together. Side by Side’s Dan Humble came and took photo’s, including the lovely one above – thanks Dan! There will be a link to a page of photo’s added shortly. Firas and Shiran worked hard on the party preperations and the clear up and it was great to see Azizeh and Lemlem enjoying themselves and spending time with friends. Great work all round RASAG team!
Many thanks to everyone at Sharrow Community forum and Sharrow Surestart for making everything run smoothly and keeping the kiddies occupied with glue, sparklies and other fun messy stuff! There will be more pics and quotes from the group to follow, plus a piece in Sharrow Today, but suffice to say, we’re planning an even bigger bash for “Big Eid” in a few months – though we were very pleased with the 80+ people we attracted to “little Eid”
Eid Mubarack!
Many thanks to Shine on Sharrow!
31 AugThanks to the Shine on Sharrow committee RASAG will be holding an Eid celebration on 11th September at the Old Junior School building, 1-5 pm. As well as proving some delicious food for everyone, RASAG will be laying on entertainment including Kurdish singing and dancing. We are on the look out for performers to make this a truly multicultural experience and there will be children’s activities too.
Everyone is welcome to come and celebrate on the 11th september – the more the merrier.
This will be a great opportunity to eat and drink together, have fun and meet new friends in the community. The whole community likes to celebrate Christmas together, whether we are Christians or not… Let’s do something special together as a community for Eid this year.
Protest for Lemlem
20 JulThis could be our last chance to make a difference.
Lemlem is due to be deported to Ethiopia tomorrow, despite the fact that she is not from there and has never been there before. Lemlem does not speak Amharic, the first language of Ethiopia. Her family and village were murdered by Ethiopian forces in 1978 due to their association with the Eritrean Liberation Front, so Lemlem will be seen as an enemy in Ethiopia. She is 60 years old, has a bad limp and poor eyesight – she has no chance of surviving in a new country where she has no friends or contacts.
If you’re in any doubt about how failed asylum seekers are removed from the UK and who by, check out the Independant’s front page on Monday 5th July 2010
There is a facebook event for the protest at;
http://www.facebook.com/katelyn.mckeown#!/event.php?eid=125508334160492&ref=mf
The details are Vulcan House, 6 Millsands, Sheffield S3 8NU, Today · 15:00 – 17:00
For more information look at the facebook group. Sign Lemlem’s petition at;
http://www.sheffieldcdas.org.uk/campaigns/petitions/lemlem-hussein-abdu/
Don’t let them send this poor lady away from the UK where she is safe and much loved.
RASAG Did Lunch!
19 JulYesterday was a very early start for the RASAG hardcore who were on BBC Radio Sheffield at 7.40 am – it was very rainy and things weren’t looking great for picnicing outdoors! Check us out at 1 hr 40 here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p008swzd/Sunday_Breakfast_18_07_2010/
However things started to look up when we were offered a room in doors for our picnic and nine RASAG members turned out to help with the cooking and cleaning – which was brilliant!
Some of the spread and the first lunchers!
We were also supported by some of my Learn For Life ESOL learners who brought along food and leant a hand.
There were queues out of the door and the room was full!
Everyone enjoyed the food and after an hour and a half it was all gone – we think we fed about 200 people! we put the Legends display up in the room and we got lots of feedback about that.
Everyone had a great day – another successful RASAG event!
RASAG crew!
We also took the opportunity to collect signitures for Lemlem – we got about 120 and the petitions have been dropped at the Law centre today. We had an emmotional phonecall from Lemlem as we were preparing the food in the morning and it was horribly clear that she should have been there with us, enjoying the day and getting involved with the community, instead of locked up and terrified. Please sign Lemlem’s petition at
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petition/37793/sign.html#se
City of Sanctuary and Roundabout Homeless Charity had displays at the event and it was great to see Side By Side performing Communicatease again… This was a very successful case of refugee and asylum seeker activities being combined with a wider community event… The RASAG aim in action!
Legends
29 JunAs the Legends Project approaches the finale of this leg of it’s journey, appearances at Gleadless Valley and Sharrow festivals, it seems that the time to take stock is nigh…
Legends kicked off with a workshop on the 18th July and despite complications including court appearances, fork lift truck driving lessons, hospital appointments and illness, we had a marvelous time with singing, dancing and lots of storytelling!
Activities that we worked on included a storytelling circle where we took turns in sitting in “the magic chair” and telling a story to the rest of the group – everyone chose their own tale and did this exercise by themselves – something many would not have felt confident to do at the start of the day.
The magic chair was the place to tell stories!
We also asked people to take a piece of flipchart paper to a quiet corner and write or draw something they would like to tell about. This produced some fabulous results that formed the basis of our exhibition. As I had hoped in the planning stages of the project, this allowed people to express feelings and ideas that reflected on the refugee and asylum seeker experience, with people sharing elements of the story of how they escaped their country and feelings about the injustice of their struggle for freedom. There were also funny personal anecdotes and stories which expressed a dilemma, calling on the addressee to answer questions about morality and due cause…
We put the written stories on the wall and discussed them
We took a break to enjoy a meal together and stories continued to bound across the table, with magic amulets and language being particularly strong topics!
The next day some of the participants and our professional storyteller Roisin Murray set up a gazebo at Heeley Festival and entertained adults and children with our stories.
In the evening we went on stage at Assist’s One World Over Concert, where we enjoyed explaining the project, singing a song and telling some stories – the group felt great and really elated after this event!
On Monday 21st June the group entertained audiences at Central and Ecclessall library and we showed an exhibition of stories and photo’s which was of great interest to the attendants.
The exhibition of stories and pictures was well received in the libraries
After a week in the storytelling wilderness RASAG was out in force at the Heeley Institute Variety is the Spice of Life community lunch yesterday. Nine participants entertained an audience of over 50 people with songs, stories and more stories! City of Sanctuary’s film maker Andrew was there and we are all very excited to see the results of his filming. This was our greatest event so far and the participants really came into their own, taking center stage and proving the personal growth that’s been achieved through the Legends project. The aim of the Legends project was to give people a voice and to help them to interact with the community and it was a source of great pride to see this in action.
Next on the agenda for Legends are appearances at Gleadless Valley Festival on Saturday 3rd June at 11.50 and on Sharrow Festival’s Community Stage on the same day at 1.15. If the Heeley Institute appearance is anything to go by, we’re going to take the crowd by storm!
