We took inspiration from something very ‘establishment’ and British – the iconic blue English Heritage plaques that recognise historically important people that have lived in Britain – and gave the concept a twist to surprise and challenge assumptions about refugees and Britishness. We replaced the message of ‘lived here’ with the date of the person arriving in the UK and their contribution they’ve made since. The plaques needed to stand out on the high street, so were given bright colours to make them pop.

The 'I Am A Refugee' campaign included a number of English Heritage-style plaques which were erected on places of significance for famous and influential refugees who settled and have contributed to life in the UK. These plaques included Rita Ora (singer), Judith Kerr (author of ‘Mog The Cat’) and Dame Stephanie Shirley (computer pioneer and philanthropist). St. Paul's Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament both served as a space for a pop-up exhibition, featuring many more refugees who have settled in Britain. We also created an educational website www.iamarefugee.net, which was launched to highlight the growing refugee crisis, and to solicit support and share the stories of refugees. Refugees and supporters can create their own plaques to tell their stories and show their support, and these can be shared on social media to raise more awareness.

The campaign provided support to refugees and immigrants in the UK and offered an outlet for the British public to demonstrate their support and show that the UK still welcomes those in need. In the two months after the campaign launched, the amount of tweets that used the hashtag ‘#iamarefugee’ increased by 1088%. To date, there have been hundreds of refugee plaques created on the website, and many more added daily.

The exhibition in St Paul’s Cathedral had over 78k visitors, and The Museum of Immigration and Diversity had around 800 visitors whilst the exhibition was there. JCWI reported that at least 1.8k people have visited Minoo Jalali’s plaque, with ‘thousands’ having seen Professor Walter Hayman’s, and Dame Shirley’s plaques.