12 April 2023
As part of our Equal Access campaign, STAR groups organise university open days for refugees and people seeking asylum who are interested in applying for university. In this blog, Hanna from Warwick STAR shares her STAR group’s experience of a recent open day they organised for local families.Â
Hello there, I’m Hanna and I was the Campaigns Coordinator for Warwick STAR this academic year. On Saturday 25th February 2023, we organised a ‘family open afternoon’ for people within our local area who are from asylum seeking and / or refugee backgrounds.
The day was such a success! We were really pleased that 53 adults and 13 children from the local area joined us for a fun day out – including a tour of campus, a refreshing walk, a lovely lunch, and a few games with an educational talk on the options Warwick has for prospective students from diverse backgrounds.
How we planned the open day
We worked closely with our University’s Widening Participation team to help with the funding of the transport and catering. The organisation of the day was sorted by our helpful STAR executive team. And we had lots of other resources to recommend to attendees and organisers through STAR’s Equal Access campaign and the STAR national team!
We made multilingual posters with all the details of the day on them a few months prior, and distributed them to the STAR national team, local organisations, and general Warwick Societies to get as much widespread awareness of the event as possible. We also printed the posters and placed them in the local hotels where we do frequent volunteer sessions of conversational English, and we were able to tell participants to attend and bring their friends!
What happened on the day?
- Coaches picked up our guests from the local Coventry Refugee Centre, Youth Centre, and nearby hotels that we volunteer at.
- We welcomed our guests at the bus interchange and headed to the lecture room.
- There was a brief welcome chat, lots of relaxed mingling and games with the children, and we had a filling lunch.
- We headed on a tour of Warwick’s campus in smaller groups headed by STAR volunteers and STAR Exec members.
- We had an education talk with the university’s Widening Participation team and input from the youth centre coordinator. Some of us played football and a few outdoor games.
What’s next?
Going forward, we are planning on doing another open day in October 2023 with a more academic and application focus. And of course, considering the success of this wonderful day, we will be planning many more ‘fun days’ for the local community!
You can follow our Instagram to see all of our interesting and diverse events @StarAtWarwick (including other open days). Get in touch with Warwick STAR by email on staratwarwick@gmail.com for any questions, further information or resources.
Take care and continue to change the narrative of refugees through STAR at your universities!
If you’re interested in organising an open day for refugee and asylum-seeking students at your university, get in touch with STAR Campaigns Manager Siobhán.