Refugee Week

Refugee Week is Australia’s peak annual activity to inform the public about refugees and celebrate positive contributions made by refugees to Australian society. Finding Freedom is the 2023 theme.

To live without the fear of war, to have your basic human rights upheld, to live in equality and without the fear of persecution are just some of the examples of what freedom can entail. Every day millions of people across the world embark on dangerous journeys for the sole purpose of finding safety and freedom. Finding Freedom should be a way of life.

Refugee Week runs from Sunday 18 June to Saturday 24 June.

Updated April 12, 2023
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Wyndham Library
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Seeking Asylum: Our Stories
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
Paper Book
100% of the proceeds from this title will go to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre This beautifully illustrated hardback captures the stories of those who have lived the experience of seeking asylum. In their own voices, contributors share how they came to be in Australia,...
What strange paradise
El Akkad, Omar
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * From the widely acclaimed, bestselling author of American War--a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving novel that looks at the global refugee crisis through the eyes of a child. "Told from...
Unknown : a refugee's story
Anyieth, Akuch Kuol
Paper Book
A moving, confronting and ultimately uplifting story about a young girl's escape, with her family, from war-torn South Sudan to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, and then to Australia. In 1996, when Akuch Kuol Anyieth is five, her mother flees to Kakuma with her children, intent on finding...
Saving the butterfly
Cooper, Helen
Paper Book
"When rescuers meet the boat, there are only two people left--a big child and a little one. The big one, remembering the trip across the dark sea, hides indoors. The little one ventures out, making friends, laughing, growing strong. When he brings the outside in, in the form of a butterfly, will his...
Freedom, only freedom : the prison writings of Behrouz Boochani
Boochani, Behrouz
Paper Book
Over six years of imprisonment in Australia's offshore migrant detention centre, the Kurdish-Iranian journalist and writer Behrouz Boochani bore personal witness to the suffering and degradation inflicted on him and his fellow refugees, culminating eventually in his prize-winning book - No...
Disquiet
Livaneli, Zülfü
Paper Book
World Literature Today- Notable Translation of the Year PopMatters- Best Book of the Year From the internationally bestselling author of Serenade for Nadia, a powerful story of love and faith amidst the atrocities committed by ISIS against the Yazidi people...
The world is not big enough : the truth is a foreign country for a refugee
Russell, Vanessa
Paper Book
The World Is Not Big Enough is the story of one woman's journey to understand the human side of a broken system. At once an investigation into the murder of a refugee and a compassionate exploration of who he was, The World Is Not Big Enough exposes the ways we are all affected by...
Wandering Souls
Pin, Cecile
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 'A mighty achievement' OCEAN VUONG 'Beautiful, brilliant' R. F. KUANG 'Dazzling' OBSERVER 'Will shatter your heart' GLAMOUR 'Powerful'...
Smuggled : an illegal history of journeys to Australia
Balint, Ruth
Paper Book
"Louis was an agent of conspiracy, a 'people trafficker,' helping the captive and the helpless negotiate a precarious avenue to freedom. He was, I believe, genuinely on our side and, to this day, remains a hero for me." --Les Murray, sports commentator and 'Soccer King' People smugglers...
Year of the rabbit
Tian
Paper Book
One family's quest to survive the devastation of the Khmer Rouge "Striking and moving... The comics form allows readers [to] understand through chronological progression and a close view how horror can become the stuff of the everyday."--The New York Times
Rebel My Escape from Saudi Arabia to Freedom
Mohammed, Rahaf
CD
Last boat out of Shanghai : the epic story of the Chinese who fled Mao's revolution
Zia, Helen
Paper Book
The dramatic, real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist Revolution-a precursor to the struggles faced by emigrants today. Shanghai has historically been China's jewel, its richest, most modern city. The...
Still alive : notes from Australia's immigration detention system
Ahmed, Safdar
Paper Book
In early 2011, Safdar Ahmed visited Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre for the first time. He brought pencils and sketchbooks into the centre and started drawing with the people detained there. Their stories are told in this book.Interweaving journalism, history and autobiography, Still...
Boy, everywhere
Dassu, A. M.
Paper Book
This debut middle-grade novel chronicles the harrowing journey taken by Sami and his family from privilege to poverty, across countries and continents, from a comfortable life in Damascus, via a smuggler's den in Turkey, to a prison in Manchester. A story of survival, of family, of bravery ... In a...
Freeing my family
Abdusalam, Sadam
Paper Book
The remarkable true story of a father who moved heaven and earth to help his wife and son escape Chinese persecution and bring them to safety in Australia.
No friend but the mountains : writing from Manus Prison
Boochani, Behrouz
Paper Book
Winner of Australia's richest literary award, No Friend but the Mountains is Kurdish-Iranian journalist and refugee Behrouz Boochani's account of his detainment on Australia's notorious Manus Island prison. Composed entirely by text message, this work represents the harrowing experience of...
Father of the Lost Boys : a memoir
Alaak, Yuot A.
Paper Book
During the Second Sudanese Civil War, thousands of South Sudanese boys were displaced from their villages or orphaned in attacks from northern government troops. Many became refugees in Ethiopia. There, in 1989, teacher and community leader Mecak Ajang Alaak assumed care of the Lost Boys in a bid to...
The power of hope
Karapanagiotidis, Kon
Paper Book
A powerful, inspiring memoir from Kon Karapanagiotidis, founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which argues that by putting community, love and compassion at the centre of our lives, we have the power to change our world. 'I hope you take from this book the message that we all...
Refugee rights and policy wrongs : a frank, up-to-date guide by experts
McAdam, Jane
Paper Book
Everyone has the right to seek asylum under international law. However, successive governments in Australia have declared the need to 'stop the boats' whatever the cost, be it human, economic, moral or legal.In this new book, Jane McAdam and Fiona Chong find that Australia's policies towards...

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