Tower and Town, October 2014

Editorial: Identity - Who Am I?

I have had the privilege over the past four years of working with groups from the Caribbean, African and Asian diaspora at meetings in Edinburgh, Sheffield, Wolverhampton, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham and London, exploring how we can build on the natural links that they have to their home communities to make them more inclusive. E.g, if you are a Malawian nurse working in an NHS hospital, how might we develop a partnership between your hospital in Birmingham and a hospital in Lilongwe? Or if you are a teacher from Jamaica, teaching in Brixton, how about forming a partnership with a school in Kingston so that children at both ends understand the global context in which they are living and will work?

A recurring theme in our meetings has been that of identity and the importance of understanding who we are.

I am grateful to my friends from Africa (Somalia), Asia (Sri Lanka), Caribbean (Jamaica) and Europe (our Curate Janneke from Holland) who have contributed to this edition of Tower and Town for sharing their very personal reflections on their identity and ''who they think they area". Some of it makes disturbing reading!

Nick Maurice