An Evening with an Immigrant #talkaboutblack

As part of Black History Month (October 2018) please join us for "An Evening With an Immigrant", a poignant, moving story narrated by Inua Ellams.

Inua is a prominent African playwright and poet whose personal account of his arrival in this country and his subsequent struggle for acceptance, shines a bright light on one of the societal issues of our time: what it means to be a black person in the UK today.

As Financial Services begins to take steps to address the issues that concern minorities, this event is the first in a series on ethnicity that will bring our industry together to reflect on what we can do to bring about a change.

This will be an important event and the first of its kind. Please do join us if you can (click here to register).

Speakers

Inua Ellams
The theatre-maker and poet Inua Ellams – whose hit show Barber Shop Chronicles returns to the National Theatre in November – was 12 when he and his family were forced to leave Nigeria because they were being threatened and an uncle had vanished. In this show, he quotes Warsan Shire’s haunting poem that begins: “No one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark.” Twenty years on, he is settled in the UK, but still looking for a place to call home. As with all his family, he has only discretionary leave to remain in the country. It must be renewed every three years. At £900 a pop. The next due date is in December
He is used to living with uncertainty, even though he is celebrated as an artist. He has been invited to Buckingham Palace, but the Home Office refuses to invite him to stay permanently. Ellams quotes statistics that say immigrants bring £2.5bn more to the British economy than they take out, but you can’t measure the contribution poetry and theatre bring to people’s lives.