- Share This Post
- submit
- 0
-
Sparkle (0)
A few days ago I received the best news ever. Illuminee's book got published and I no longer need to queue up in the 'other.' Let me start from the beginning.
Illuminee came to me for help through my role at Norwich Mind. She's a survivor of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and is now a refugee in the UK. She's a woman of strength and determination - motivated by one force, her love for her son, Roger. When I learned about what nightmares she had to endure in Rwanda, my heart bled for her. How does a human being overcome such tragedies without going completely mad and losing their spirit?
By the time I met her, she has been let down countless times by people she trusted because they promised to get her book published. She was feeling helpless, hopeless and frustrated. Her book is about her life in Rwanda, the events leading to the genocide, the darkest moments in her life and her journey to safety in the UK. I told her that the only promise I could make was that I would do everything in my power to help her achieve her goal, but never promising to get her manuscript published.
I could sense her hesitation. She didn't see the merit of talking to yet more people to explore possibilities. Finally I was able to convince her to talk to my journalist friend, to allow herself to be photographed and have an article written about her and her book in the local paper. She doubted that this would have any impact since she's already been filmed by a BBC journalist when they took her back to Rwanda 10 years after the genocide.
The long and short of it - Illuminee was inundated with interests in her book and is now a published author, after hand-picking someone who introduced her to Cambridge University Press. I was over the moon when she told me about this as we waited for our late train to Great Yarmouth. The book launch will take place in London, and then in Norwich. There is also talk of her touring North America and Ireland.
Illuminee and other Black and Minority Ethnic people get knocked back in Norfolk often. It's not the friendliest of places and not quite as cosmopolitan as the bigger cities. To illustrate, at Norwich Airport inbound flight passengers are made to queue up in two - EU passport holders and non-EU passengers. 9 out of 10 times, there will be only one person waiting to be called at the non-EU line. One would think this person would be let through by the immigration officer first. But no. They are made to wait until all the other 99 passengers have gone through. Now how humiliating, frustrating and offensive is that?
So after using Norwich Airport for a couple of years now, I made it my mission to rectify this. I finally got the contact details of the Chief Immigration Officer for Norwich and Harwich and guess what! He was the most accommodating Immigration Officer I've ever come across. He apologised for the situation and told me that there is no need for non-EU passengers to wait at the other line, as long as they have their landing card completed. I can't wait to try it this May when I fly back from the Philippines.
Goddess888
joy@thegoddessinyou.co.uk
The Goddess In You
