The event is organised in conjunction with Sandblast, an arts and human rights charity. It works with the Saharawi people who are refugees in the harsh Algerian desert or live oppressed in their own homeland of Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony.

Event speakers include:

Ms. Danielle Smith, Founding Director of Sandblast
Mr. Ken Ritchie, Western Sahara Campaign

The speakers will discuss the Western Sahara campaign and then screen a short movie that describes the life of the Saharawis people in Western Sahara, opening the topics and issues for a rousing engagement with the audience.

Background information
The Saharawi people are a forgotten and abandoned people whose fate shares many parallels with the Palestianians. Yet after more than 33 years of refugee life in the harsh Algerian desert or living under a repressive Moroccan occupation in the Western Sahara, their plight is still virtually unknown. They don’t seem to be on anyone’s agenda either politically or otherwise.

Today while the Saharawis continue to await for a long promised UN referendum for self-determination, every family remains divided by a 2500km long wall in Western Sahara. Built by the Moroccans to defend their occupation it is a powerful and chilling symbol of their struggle to bring down the walls of silence, end the violence against an entrie people along with their dispersal and homelessness.

In an attempt to get the Saharawis on our radar screens, the Western Sahara Campaign works in the UK to put political pressure on the British government to find a fair and lasting solution to the conflict, while the Sandblast charity seeks to give the Saharawis visibility and a voice through the arts.