{"id":20960,"date":"2017-02-28T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2017-02-28T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/?p=20960"},"modified":"2017-02-28T11:00:27","modified_gmt":"2017-02-28T11:00:27","slug":"sandwell-library-named-uks-first-ever-library-sanctuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2017\/02\/28\/sandwell-library-named-uks-first-ever-library-sanctuary\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandwell library to be named UK\u2019s first ever \u2018Library of Sanctuary\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thimblemill Library in Sandwell will on Thursday be named the UK\u2019s first \u2018library of sanctuary\u2019, in a historic award aimed at recognising the role of the library in welcoming refugees and migrants into the local community.<\/p>\n<p>Sabir Zazai, Director of the Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre, will present the award at a special event on Wednesday 1st March, alongside local councillors Steve Eling and Richard Marshall.<\/p>\n<p>The library is a focal point for refugee support work in the local community. It plays host to Bearwood Action for Refugees, a local voluntary group which raises money for refugees in Europe and supports people seeking sanctuary in the local area.<\/p>\n<p>Thimblemill has also been involved in other local initiatives including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hosting fundraising events which raised over \u00a34,000 to support refugees;<\/li>\n<li>Running training courses in befriending refugees and asylum issues;<\/li>\n<li>Bringing the local community together in solidarity with refugees in a symbolic \u2018Procession of Light\u2019 last autumn;<\/li>\n<li>Holding a series of monthly community lunches to welcome people seeking sanctuary in the local area.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It offers several local services, including ESOL (English as a Second Language) classes, health walks and community tea-and-toast sessions. Julie McKirdy, the librarian, was recently awarded a British Empire Medal in recognition of the library\u2019s achievements.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting, Sabir Zazai said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great news that Sandwell will be home to the UK\u2019s first Library of Sanctuary. The West Midlands has a proud history of welcoming refugees and much of that is down to local volunteers bringing people seeking refuge into their communities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy hope is that other libraries across the UK will now be inspired to recognise the vital part institutions like these can play in enabling people seeking sanctuary to be accepted in and contribute to their local communities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thimblemill Library in Sandwell will on Thursday be named the UK\u2019s first \u2018library of sanctuary\u2019, in a historic award aimed at recognising the role of the library in welcoming refugees and migrants into the local community. Sabir Zazai, Director of the Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre, will present the award at a special event on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,3,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}