A boating lake meeting

 Great to catch up with Mirabela Robatzchi at Helston Boating Lake for another long chat about the issues involved in the project. Mirabela - originally from Romania and with a legal training -  is so thoughtful. An hour and a half whizzes by.

We started meeting at the Boating Lake in the early days of the pandemic (as soon as it was possible) and it continues to be a very pleasant place for a coffee and a chat.

Lecture at Callywith College, Bodmin

 The wonders of the internet - in this case, Microsoft Teams!

It was great for us to be able to give a lunchtime lecture at Callywith College, Bodmin, Cornwall, this afternoon (Wednesday 6 October 2021).  Mirabela Robatzchi, a Romanian lawyer now living in Helston, joined me to talk about migration and the hostility and prejudice often faced by migrants.

Some very good questions from students:  they asked Mirabela how long it took to adapt. And was language a real barrier?

And  - best of all - someone coming up at the end to volunteer to work with us and become more involved. We couldn't ask for a better result than that!

"We're never doing an anti-immigrant story again"

 Very good to hear about a total change of direction at the Daily Express BBC Radio 4 - The Media Show, "We're never doing an anti-immigrant story again"

In the programme: "Daily Express editor Gary Jones is Labour-voting, backed Remain, and wants his paper to reflect multicultural Britain. He tells Amol Rajan how he effected a complete change of direction at the tabloid, once known for its dodgy weather forecasts and anti-immigrant stance."

When we started work on migration-related issues in 2006, the Daily Express was one of the tabloid newspapers fuelling anti-immigration feeling with a stream of stories and incendiary headlines.

Hats off, Gary Jones.

Being an intensive care nurse right now

A big thank you to Keno Toriello, who sent me a link to this article in the Guardian: This is what it's like to be an intensive care unit nurse right now.

It's by 'Anonymous' - and a good read. Especially when you get to the powerful and moving final paragraph that rounds it off:

"I’m an EU migrant, like a vast number of people working in intensive care. Many of us were working on New Year’s Eve when the law changed, and we went from being residents of this country to being guests with settled status. When all this is over, I hope there is an acknowledgement that we didn’t leave this country; we didn’t leave our posts, even when it felt like Britain abandoned us. The Brexit vote was about taking back control of our borders, but it turns out they were worried about the wrong kind of foreign invader – it was the virus that was the problem. I hope people will remember that when it came to it, it was those people who chose to make this country home who kept the lights on."

What would the NHS do without nurses like the author?

Keno Toriello, originally from Chile, is working with us on I PACKED THIS MYSELF, our work to break down prejudice against people from overseas living in Cornwall and often playing a vital role in the local economy.

Cornish miners in Mexico

 An interesting review here by the academic Bernard Deacon of a book on Cornish miners in Mexico.

I PACKED THIS MYSELF workshops in Mousehole and for curates

We're continuing our workshops on the workers from overseas who play a vital role in the Cornish economy. The aim is to highlight the role that they play and the issues they might face when making the huge life decision to leave home and create a life elsewhere.

Most recently we Zoomed in to Mousehole Primary School where children afterwards created wonderful suitcases illustrating important journeys they have made in life.

Tess drew a picture of her much-loved horse (she told us on Zoom that if she had to leave home she'd take her horse with her). And also recalled a journey she made at the age of three when she went to visit her grandmother in Norwich. Her grandmother often comes down to Cornwall but this was the only time she has ever visited her grandmother's house.  She doesn't even really remember this trip. But the idea of it is important to her.

Flora remembered a 'research' trip. Her favourite animals are wolves and on a holiday to France her family visited a wolf park - where they also saw vultures. This was a voyage of discovery for Flora.

We've also recently delivered a workshop to more than 20 curates training to be vicars in the Diocese of Truro.  Our Romanian volunteers Dragos and Mirabela joined the workshop and talked about their lives.

This was a large audience and there were some interesting reactions...

Good ideas to emerge: the idea of putting up notices in church porches to welcome workers from overseas. We can help by providing templates for that: anyone interested should email info@bridging-arts.com.

At the same time, the curates also had another important thought: it would be important to combine this invitation and poster with some 'in-house' training so that congregations offered a real and heartfelt welcome.

We all agreed: the prejudice and difficulties that workers from overseas can face is not unique to Cornwall: far from it. It happens all over the country - and the world.

The workshop also threw a spotlight on the fact that Dragos and Mirabela's journey was life changing. They not only changed countries, they changed jobs and were faced with the immediate challenge of integrating into an environment that was inevitably alien, initially.

This is very different from the journey of a professional from one country to another who would find a lifestyle very similar to their home country. This is a journey of discovery into the unknown, and it's not always easy.

Social justice work in Diocese of Truro

 Good to see I PACKED THIS MYSELF featuring in the Diocese of Truro's Social Responsibility briefing this month. Thank you to Andrew Yates, vicar of Paul Church, for helping to make this happen.  Click here to read.