By Grace Gomez, PACT’s Adopter Diversity Recruitment Officer
It’s June 2021 and we are looking forward to PACT’s first publicity event for 18 months as we join the Radiate Windrush Festival at Crystal Palace, London.
Radiate Windrush Festival is a grass-roots celebration of National Windrush Day. It’s a beautiful day, representing an explosion of colourful, creative and resilient migrating communities from the Caribbean.
Created in 2018, the festival predominantly acknowledges the legacy of the Windrush era migration, honours its pioneers and celebrates the many generations of Caribbean British descendants with their Creole and African roots. As part of National Windrush Day, the entire festival sets out to highlight the richness of culture, the strength of community life, the value of family and the colourful impact of migration since the 1948 arrival of the Empire Windrush to Tilbury Docks.
It is a fact that Black children wait longer in care for an adoptive family. PACT works hard to reduce the time Black children wait by finding and supporting adopters who can offer a loving and permanent home for these children.
As the Adopter Diversity Recruitment Officer for PACT, I know that PACT is passionate about finding adopters from a wide range of backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures. Attending events like Radiate Windrush is a great way to reach people from the Black community and I really enjoy speaking to people about PACT and adoption as well as busting some myths around who can adopt and the process.
PACT adopters Hope*, 44, and her husband Nigel*, 46, who are of Caribbean heritage, adopted sisters Summer* and Rachel* through PACT in October 2015. Summer was just under two-and-a-half years old and Rachel was 16 months old.
Hope said: “My parents were really proud of who they are and where they came from, and they raised us in a way that made identity important so very quickly I learned to be proud of who I was.
“I just think that in their lives my girls will have 101 extra things to deal with because they are adopted, so if issues over identity can be minimised, that can only be a positive thing. For me, I am absolutely determined to do what I can to make my girls proud of who they are and I know I can help them with that.”
Radiate Windrush promises to be a lively, colourful vibrant event attended by a diverse range of people in our community. Come along and say hello if you or anyone you know is considering adoption.
Happy Windrush Day!
*Names changed for confidentiality purposes
