UK and US jewellery communities unite in support of refugees

Orkney jewellery designer Alison Moore is one of more than 100 jewellers from the UK and USA to donate work to a special Facebook auction in aid of refugees around the world. The Auction for Aid begins on Monday, 18 September, and runs until Sunday, 24 September. It follows a similar auction held last year, which raised almost £25,000 for the global refugee cause. Proceeds from this year’s auction will go to two organisations – Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dedicated to preventing loss of life to refugees in distress at sea, and UK based NGO, Help Refugees. Leading the auction is Leeds based jeweller, Ghazal Ghahri-Saremi, of Soremi Jewellery. He sad: "I was deeply affected by the tragic images of the little Syrian refugee, Alan Kurdi, whose body was found washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015. “Whilst it was too late to help Alan, I wanted to try and do something positive for the organisations at the frontline of this global crisis and that’s how the auction came together. He added: “I asked a few jeweller friends if they would be interested in donating and it quickly became clear I wasn’t alone in how I felt about the terrible injustice of the refugee crisis. “Everyone donating pieces to the auction is trying to use their skills in an effort to effect positive change, so we really hope the public will get behind us.” Half of the funds raised this year would go to Help Refugees’ Baytna Centre in Northern Greece. The centre, run by Help Refugees’ partners, the Refugee Trauma Initiative (RTI), provides psychosocial support and primary school education for refugee children up to the age of six. The remaining proceedings will go to MOAS, currently assisting the persecuted Rohingya people in Myanmar. In addition to work by Alison Moore Designs, the auction - hosted on the Auction For Aid Facebook page - will feature donations from jewellers in the UK and America, such as Polly Wales, Margery Hirschey, Melissa Joy Manning and Jo Hayes Ward.