Refugee Welcome Box Project- 2022

The Refugee Welcome Box Project is organised by the Schools of Sanctuary in Southampton in collaboration with the John Hansard Gallery. This year the project brought together 12 schools from across the city to create Welcome Boxes, designed to provide those seeking sanctuary with a little something to help while they settle into their new homes and lives.  

Each school was tasked with collecting one item from the list of: tea, coffee, UHT milk, sugar, jam, honey, tissues/toilet paper, toothpaste, toothbrushes, flannels, deodorants, soap and confectionary. At Bevois Town we asked for donations of biscuits, chocolate and sweets.  We were overwhelmed by the generous response from our community. 

On 7th March 2022, Mr Steel, Mrs Durrant and four School of Sanctuary Ambassadors: Hassan (Year 5), Melissa (Year 5), Harry (Year 6) and Wiktoria (Year 6), all traveled to the John Hansard Gallery, who provided the venue for the citywide event. Throughout the afternoon, schools from all over Southampton arrived to fill boxes with a selection of all the items collected from all the schools. 

As a city we created over 70 boxes. This will help families all over England to get started in the most difficult of times. After two very challenging years for everyone, the event was a ray of hope and it was an absolute privilege to be a part of something so vital in the current climate.