UWE Bristol students to work with Bristol community to celebrate the Windrush Generation

Media Relations Team, 28 October 2020

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Street art of the Windrush ship on a wall in St Paul's, Bristol. — Photo credit: Sam Saunders

A new project launched by UWE Bristol will see students, alumni and members of the local community come together to celebrate the contribution of the Windrush generation.

The collaboration will involve university students, many of whom are from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, working alongside generations of Caribbean community members to record and document their stories and experiences related to their lives in Bristol and Britain. Alumni are supporting the project with creative and artistic production, including digital, film and graphic consultancy.

Students will hear from prominent community leaders and artists, many of whom are first and second generation Windrush immigrants, about the successes and challenges of adaption to life in Britain via a series of online workshops and mini-lectures.

Throughout the project, participants will be invited to create artistic expressions of their learnings through stories, research, art, photographs, artefacts or poetry. These will be shared at a celebratory event on Windrush Day, 22 June 2021, which will mark exactly 73 years since the arrival of the ship MV Empire Windrush at the Port of Tilbury near London.

Roger Griffith MBE, Associate Lecturer at UWE Bristol, is leading the project and said: ‘‘It is fitting that we are launching this exciting new project in Black History Month; a time when we recognise the contributions that people of African and Caribbean backgrounds have made to the UK.

‘‘The overall aim of this initiative is to encourage an intergenerational collaboration which develops the interpersonal, self-expression and creative skills of students and community members. It seeks to give voice to Caribbean elders’ experiences, their resilience and tenacity, and highlights the amazing contribution they have made to the UK multicultural society and across the African Diaspora.”

The Windrush generation refers to people arriving in the UK between 1948 and 1971 from Caribbean countries. The ship MV Empire Windrush, brought workers from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and other islands, to help fill post-war UK labour shortages.

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Community Equality and social justice