Zimbabwean food, music, classes – Gum boot dancing and Mbria playing - followed by an evening showing film and video with discussion about some of the issues faced by Zimbabwe and her people. It was standing room only for the videos and talks. The day finished with an evening of music and dancing until midnight.

OUTCOMES FROM THE WEEK

We had 200 people visiting on the Zimbabwe day, enjoying their culture and looking at the art exhibition. On Zimbabwe Day we had donations pots and all of that was given to the Bristol Zimbabwe Association.

We had 301 other people through the week to see the exhibition, making a total of 501 for the week.

Aside of a growing friendship with many of the artists and Zimbabweans who were involved in the activities of the week, The Pierian Centre now has Mbira classes, Gumboot Dancing classes and KaleidoSound evenings as regular events. In addition we have hosted other events for the Bristol Zimbabwe Association – a talk by Godfrey Ncube and their AGM being examples.

As a result of the Exhibition, someone went back to the school at which they teach in Northamptonshire and developed a thought for the day the following Monday all about Refugees and Asylum Seekers. They used an illustration from Ricky Romaine’s website (one of our exhibitors), and created a debate about some of the issues around Refugees and Asylum Seekers with their class.

Another music teacher, having met one of the Refugee Zimbabwean families who live in Bristol, told their story to a class of school boys in Dorset as an introduction to teaching them David Fanshaw’s African Sanctus.

We also had exhibitions from various organisations and charities, sold several copies of the RAM report from Mediawise, and have now contributed towards the sponsorship of Helen Wilson’s amazing series of paintings about the Rwandan Genocide: “Making Sense” which she is exhibiting in the Barge House – part of the OXO Gallery in London.

As part of the developing relationship with the BZA, the Pierian Centre supported a petition-signing event with the result that a petition against deportation of Zimbabweans was submitted to the Home Office with over 1000 signatures. Two people who want to start a Zimbabwe vigil in Bristol are now in much closer contact with the Bristol Zimbabwe Association as a consequence of all this.

The Pierian Centre has had a footfall of over 25,000 in 3 years, many of whom have never before set foot in St Pauls. Of the 501 people who came to the Centre in Refugee Week, many of them had never been to the Centre before and many left the art exhibition with tears in their eyes or sometimes in complete silence. Over and over again we heard comments that people had been moved, inspired, educated, that the experience had been uplifting. While Zimbabwean people played music, their relations were on hunger strike in detention centres here in the UK and their houses were being bulldozed in Zimbabwe. They brought spirit and inspiration into the Centre and to many of us who work there.

The week promoted to the wider community the issues that surround refugees,

specifically in a way that gave those issues a human face – either through meeting individuals, seeing the art or joining in the music. It also provided a focus for the refugees themselves – giving them a voice for their debate to be heard, a sense of a shared community of interest and a sense of place within that community.