GLASGOW actress Carmen Pieraccini, best known for her role as Kelly Marie in River City, has joined forces with Scottish Refugee Council to launch Refugee Festival Scotland.

The annual arts and culture festival begins on Wednesday and celebrates the many contributions refugees make to life in Scotland, and the welcome they receive here.

For the next three weeks community groups across Scotland, representing more than twenty different nationalities and cultures, will open their doors to share their food and drink, music and poetry, dance, visual art, languages and ideas.

Produced by Scottish Refugee Council, the festival also celebrates the international role Scotland plays in providing protection to people fleeing persecution and human rights abuses.

Carmen Pieraccini said: "Scottish hospitality is famous around the world, and it's so important that we continue to open our arms to people who need safety and protection.

"Everyone deserves the right to shelter and the chance to live their lives free from fear and violence. I think we should all celebrate the fact that our country provides a place of safety to people in need and see this as a positive and something to be proud of.

"I'm delighted to be part of Refugee Festival Scotland and I'm really looking forward to the next three weeks of events, finding out more about Scotland's refugee communities and getting to know the 'new Scots' who live and work alongside us.

"Sometimes we focus too much on what makes us different from each other but we all live here now. The music, dance, performance and family events during this festival remind us how much we all have in common."