It’s about faith, but beyond faith – here’s what your Faith Ambassadors have been up to…
A group of students known as Faith Ambassadors at NTU caught the public’s attention after the Caribbean Journeys project and the Windrush scandal were introduced in a public lecture for Black History Month.
Presented by two PhD students – Sofia Aatkar, studying Caribbean-British travelling writing at NTU, and Kelsi Delaney from the University of Leicester, researching the cultural politics of form in contemporary anglophone Caribbean poetry, the project records the journeys of Caribbean people living in Nottingham.
Contributors of the project were Caribbean, aged between 14 and 90 years old, recalling their journeys between their home and the UK in the forms of collective poems and narratives. It revealed the psychological impacts of migration on this generation and its descendants, particularly those who are of the Windrush generation.
Clive Foster, multi-faith manager at NTU and senior pastor in Nottingham’s Pilgrim Church, stressed the impacts on Windrush generation.
He says the range of experiences that people were showing to them is concerning in the wake of Windrush scandal. There are people who were forced to make the decision not to attend a family funeral back in Jamaica because of the concern that they might not be able to return to the UK with a visitor passport, and an elder who had lung cancer suffered anxiety from worries being deported.
“People are struggling whom to go to for the emotional and psychological support,” Clive said. “They need people they can trust and can talk to – just to listen to them, really.”
Working closely with NTU faith ambassadors, a group of students from all over the world with all faith backgrounds and non-faith, promoting the positives and mutual understandings of different faiths, Clive believes faith groups can be a trusted community where people can go to share the situations that worry them.
Through various events both on campus and in local communities, NTU Faith Ambassadors are building interfaith dialogues and creating a safe place for people to share their experiences regardless of their faith.
“It is important that there are people on this campus recognising and understanding different communities who are very much faith-inspired and how important that faith plays a part for those who were going through the struggle,” said Clive.
He added: “It is also a great opportunity for faith ambassadors to hear about the Windrush generation and understand what they were going through.”
By Qing Na
Feature image credit: NTU Faith