Quakers consider Sanctuary to mark Windrush Day
Friends in London held an event to mark Windrush Day
London Quakers marked Windrush Day by joining with the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) and members of Britain Yearly Meeting’s (BYM’s) Sanctuary Meetings programme to explore how to grow Friends’ Sanctuary Everywhere work.
The event on 22 June started with an opening speech from Rosemary Crawley, from QARN, who talked about the history of West Indian immigration. She said: ‘The key point that I would make, from the contemporary historian David Olusoga, is that the recruitment of labour from the West Indies was being opposed for a range of racialised reasons even in 1947, and this, despite the labour shortages in the UK and despite the obvious needs of the West Indian populations struggling with devastated economies, and with the after-effects of floods and hurricanes.’
Elaine Arnold, the keynote speaker, shared her experiences as a person from the Windrush generation. She spoke about the results of her research within her community, particularly on the difficulties the children in the UK had in attaching to their families.
Fred Ashmore, clerk of London Quakers, said: ‘The panel discussion which followed welcomed more speakers including: Michael Darko, from Freed Voices, who talked about his own experience in immigration detention and their campaign to end it; Sahdya Darr, from Quaker Peace & Social Witness, who talked about Islamophobia; and Lyndsay Burtonshaw, from End Deportations (also BYM), who talked about their work to stop charter flights and deportations.’
Attendees then took part in an ‘open space’ exercise in which they discussed questions including: ‘How to keep ourselves safe, while we do this work?’ and ‘What are the intersections of the work we do and how to keep this analysis at the centre of it?’
According to Fred Ashmore attendees felt ‘inspired to continue working to build Sanctuary Everywhere.’
