Refugee Radio Orchestra

Musicians, dancers, DJs, singers and rappers. Auditions are now open for the Refugee Radio Orchestra project 2010. Get in contact now as places are strictly limited.

The next session takes place in Brighton on Saturday April 24 th. More news to follow.

Radio Training Workshops

We have been lucky enough to conduct radio training workshops with the fantastic young people at RASP in Brighton and Hove and Refugees Aloud!, at the New Londoners project of the Children's Society in 2009. These covered everything from playlisting and sequencing to interviewing skills and pizza. We hope to inspire a new generation of refugees to engage with community radio and other parts of the media.

Refugees Aloud: Eleven young people participated in the development of two specially developed radio shows. They undertook a training workshop and spent two days developing the radio programmes focusing on the theme of positive “role models” for young people. The young people who volunteered chose pieces of music, lyrics and songs and artists who had a strong positive influence on them. They spoke on air about the positive impact that the music had had on their lives. The young people developed the content and theme of the programmes, decided on the running order of the pieces chosen and the interviews as well as producing “jingles “ in several languages for Refugee Radio. The two shows were broadcast on RadioReverb 92.7M in Brighton and on Resonance 104.4FM in London in 2009.

Community Radio Supporters

We broadcast every Sunday at 8pm on local radio in Brighton and Hove Radio Reverb. Refugee Radio features a different special guest each week who represent the local refugee community. The guests select music from their countries and music they have discovered here that tells us something about their journey. It has been compared to Desert Island Discs, except this time it's the British Isles! We are supported by the National Lottery Awards for All and Sussex Community Foundation Marit and Hans Rausing Fund. We have also contributed content to ResonanceFM and Refugee Week Radio.

Refugee Radio Around the World

We are working with broadcasters around the world to make a global community, including December 18 in Belgium & Radio 1812 and we have been talking with the Somali group Fremde Heimat München in Germany. We hope to expand this project in the future & are seeking funding to build links. We're always happy to hear from other broadcasters. We are keen to share content and explore further franchising.

Refugee Week 2008 & 2009

We contributed shows to last year's programming on the official Refugee Week Radio broadcasts. Check out their site for details. We also featured on the main Refugee Week site listings and were included as part of the local events by Brighton and Hove City Council.

Steve in the Evening

The Steve in the Evening show on Radio4a was a pilot project to test ideas for new community programmes. It was broadcast every Wednesday evening from 2006 until 2008.

Refugee Radio Roadshows

Refugee Radio took part in the launch of Refugee Week 2009 with the Bandbazi Youth Circus pefromance event "To Seek and To Enjoy" at the Pavillion Theatre in Brighton in June. This event featured live music and poetry from local refugees and asylum seekers and was covered in our Refugee Week radio broadcasts.

In August 2009 we held a Steampunk concert with the Cambridge six-piece Sunday Driver and local band Trousseaux. We had stalls selling Victoriana and clockwork artefacts, DJs from Bust the Box and audience members dressed in the appropriate attire.

We are always interested in hearing from refugee musicians and other artists to help us with the message of anti-racism and human rights.