From left to right, the five winning shirts designed by Georgette, 14 (DRC/Tanzania), Virag, 28 (Hungary), Asifiwe, 14, (Burundi/USA), Afya, 14 (USA) and Mawardi, 18 (Somalia/Ethiopia)
Today, UNIQLO and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, launched the “Hope Away from Home” graphic shirt collection, created to support refugees. Featuring designs by five young artists from refugee and host communities, the shirts are available in select UNIQLO stores in 12 countries. Profits will aid UNHCR’s efforts to address emergencies.
The designs were chosen from over 4,000 submissions in the Youth with Refugees Art Contest, which asked young artists to express hope in the face of forced displacement. The shirts are available in select UNIQLO stores across Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“Each shirt tells creatively a powerful story of hope,” said Kelly Clements, UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner. “Know that by choosing to wear this t-shirt you will be a part of a broader movement to support the work that UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is doing on the ground, across the globe, in over 135 countries and 550 operations every day to help those fleeing war, conflict and persecution. Your support matters!”.
The five artists behind the t-shirts are Asifiwe, a 14-year-old refugee from Burundi resettled to the US; Virag, a 28-year-old humanitarian worker from Hungary; Mawardi, a 20-year-old Ethiopian refugee in Somalia; Afya, a 14-year-old from the US; and Georgette, a 14-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Tanzania.
“My friends are a source of strength and hope for me,” said Asifiwe, whose friends have found safety in different parts of the world after fleeing war. “We may be separate, but we are together in heart and our memories live on.”
A jury of refugees, celebrities, artists and designers selected the winning designs. Among them, actress Ella Gross, who promoted the art contest to her 4 million followers, said: “Seeing all these amazing and unique drawings has inspired me and given me a fresh perspective on the true meaning of hope.”
Also on the jury, the world’s first female Syrian refugee pilot, Maya Ghazal, a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, said: “It’s beautiful to read captions from artists being so passionate about the refugee cause, and to see such unity and compassion from around the globe.”
UNHCR and our global partner, Fast Retailing (UNIQLO’s parent company), have been collaborating since 2006, through clothing assistance for refugees, self-reliance programmes, refugee employment and awareness campaigns. The shirt collection is named after UNHCR’s wider Hope Away from Home campaign, calling for urgent action and solidarity to protect refugees’ rights all over the globe.
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UNHCR Philippines Media contacts:
Links:
Availability of collection:
Jury members:
ABOUT UNHCR
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Refugee Agency, is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for people forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution. We lead international action to protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people. We deliver life-saving assistance, help safeguard fundamental human rights, and develop solutions that ensure people have a safe place called home where they can build a better future. We also work to ensure that stateless people are granted a nationality. We work in over 130 countries, using our expertise to protect and care for millions.
In the Philippines, UNHCR has maintained a presence for over 40 years, working on three pillars: providing durable solutions to refugees, ending and reducing statelessness, and empowering displaced families.
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ABOUT UNIQLO AND FAST RETAILING
UNIQLO is a brand of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., a leading Japanese retail holding company with global headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. UNIQLO is the largest of eight brands in the Fast Retailing Group, the others being GU, Theory, PLST, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Princesse tam.tam, J Brand and Helmut Lang. With global sales of approximately 2.77 trillion yen for the 2023 fiscal year ending August 31, 2023 (US $18.92 billion, calculated in yen using the end of August 2023 rate of $1 = 146.2 yen), Fast Retailing is one of the world’s largest apparel retail companies, and UNIQLO is Japan’s leading specialty retailer. UNIQLO continues to open large-scale stores in some of the world’s most important cities and locations, as part of its ongoing efforts to solidify its status as a global brand. Today the company has a total of more than 2,400 UNIQLO stores across the world, including Japan, Asia, Europe and North America. The total number of stores across Fast Retailing’s brands is now close to 3,600. With a corporate statement committed to changing clothes, changing conventional wisdom and change the world, Fast Retailing is dedicated to creating great clothing with new and unique value to enrich the lives of people everywhere. For more information about UNIQLO and Fast Retailing, please visit www.uniqlo.com and www.fastretailing.com
UNHCR AND FAST RETAILING PARTNERSHIP
Fast Retailing began working with UNHCR in 2006, providing clothing assistance for refugees and displaced persons around the world, and making support for refugees one of the key components of its sustainability program. In 2011, to give more comprehensive support to help solve the refugee crisis, Fast Retailing became the first company based in Asia to enter into a global partnership with the UNHCR. Along with sending used clothing items collected through its product recycling initiative to refugee camps, Fast Retailing provides a wide range of assistance, including refugee self-reliance programs, employing refugees in UNIQLO stores, and conducting refugee awareness campaigns.
More information on UNIQLO’s sustainability program, including refugee assistance programs, is available at: www.uniqlo.com/jp/en/contents/sustainability/
About the partnership with UNHCR: www.unhcr.org/uniqlo.html
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