Faith Club

29.4.18 20:21
"Lemn Sissay has spent the past two years seeking redress from Wigan council for his childhood in care. “I’ve heard some people have committed suicide going through the legal process and I can understand how it could happen. I didn’t know it would be so violently intrusive into who I am. [...] "

"Sissay has made several documentaries about the search for his family and his 25-year battle to get hold of his files from Wigan social services. He grew up in care even though his mother, a young upper-class Ethiopian who came to Britain to study, wrote letters begging the council to return her baby once she was better able to look after him. Her requests were ignored. Instead, he was renamed Norman by a social worker called Norman and permanently fostered by a local white family of devout Christians."

"When Sissay hit adolescence and became a bit rebellious (staying out late, eating cake when he was forbidden to do so), his foster parents told him he had the devil inside him, returned him to Wigan social services like he was an overdue library book and stopped all contact [...]. He was 12 years old."

"At 18, he left the care system, in shock, without a penny to his name or any qualifications. He would not be reunited with his birth mother until he was in his late 20s."
Tags: bērni