Celebrating World Refugee Day
It was our pleasure to join O’s Refugee Aid Team and others on an aid convoy on World Refugee Day in northern France on 20 June. Lemon Tree Trust donated sleeping bags, basketball hoops and balls, phone chargers and seed packets to specialist teams working directly with displaced people living in temporary camps in Calais and Dunkirk.
The trip also gave us the opportunity to visit Secours Catholique‘s refugee day centre in Calais. We are working on plans to relocate our 2018 RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden to the centre, with the help of garden designer Tom Massey, Richard Curle at Landscape Associates, as well as O’s Refugee Aid Team’s Onjali Rauf and Caroline Cottet and the brilliant team from Secours Catholique. It’s all very exciting! Watch this space for more news on this collaboration…
Pictured: The teams from O’s Refugee Aid Team, Lemon Tree Trust, Landscape Associates Ltd, Tom Massey Studio & Secours Catholique on a recent visit to northern France on World Refugee Day.
LTT activities extend into Refugee Week
Thanks to celebrated children’s author Onjali Rauf (Boy at the Back of the Class, The Night Bus Hero), O’s Refugee Aid Team and VIP Reading, we were able to extend our support beyond World Refugee Day.
VIP Reading – which provides parents and educators with high-quality educational resources and carefully selected books – included our family gardening activity sheets, sticker sheets, recipe cards and your donated seed packets in their special book boxes for Refugee Week.
About World Refugee Day and Refugee Week
World Refugee Day has been designated by the United Nations as a way to honour refugees around the globe. Together we celebrate the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home and country to escape conflict or persecution.
Linked to this day is Refugee Week, an umbrella week-long festival in the UK. celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. 2022’s theme was ‘Healing’, which sought to highlight community, mutual care and the human ability to start again.
Want to help change conversations around around forcibly displaced people and support our work?
We are regularly asked by people around the world about how they can support refugees and asylum seekers, in addition to our own gardening activities. We are incredibly grateful for your support! 💚
Yesterday, team members Hamid and Othman led a women’s workshop in Hêvî Community Garden, bringing together beneficiaries to learn, share and grow in community. The session began with an introduction to the work of the Lemon Tree Trust, our vision and our ongoing efforts across refugee and IDP (internally displaced people) camps. In places where … Continued
Noora, originally from Damascus, Syria, cooks meals that remind her family of home, using fresh herbs and seasonal produce from her small garden in Gawilan refugee camp, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. “My mother taught me to cook. Now my children help me. I never give up on the recipes that remind me of home,” she … Continued
As we reach the halfway point of 2025, we are delighted to share some of the impact your support has made possible across our projects. Thanks to your support, our projects are creating meaningful change for forcibly displaced communities, improving access to fresh food, mental wellbeing, and opportunities for connection and belonging through community gardening. … Continued