Resilience and Inclusion
Windrush was an initiative inviting people from throughout the Commonwealth to come to the UK and help address the skills and labour shortage in British industries following the Second World War.
Although the heritage of Windrush has been prominently featured in other parts of the UK, Windrush experiences in Scotland have seldom been recorded.
Windrush Scotland, a project run by Fair Justice System for Scotland (FJSS), worked with the Windrush generation invited to Scotland between 1948 and 1971, their children and their grandchildren.
The project highlighted evidence that Scottish African and Caribbean communities have often felt isolated from the work and events around Windrush elsewhere in the UK and it aimed to give greater recognition to their experience.
With that in mind they worked towards creating an oral history archive and a suite of education materials to tell their story.
It also created an opportunity to start a wider national conversation in Scotland addressing many issues including Windrush, historical injustice and the retention of traditional African and Caribbean values.
An oral history training programme for young people was a particular success and inspired the creation of the International High School Debate programme involving schools in Scotland, England, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana.
FJSS was supported by West Lothian Council Museums Service and the Living Memory Association.