The African-Caribbean Research Group preserving the legacy of The Windrush Scandal.

Artists and young people are being encouraged to contribute to a project aimed at preserving and celebrating the stories of the Windrush generation.

Dr Carol Brown-Leonardi, founder and chair of the African Caribbean Research Group, said she hoped the project would recognize the contributions made by Windrush families in Cambridgeshire.

Beginning in 2025, a series of talks, workshops, and programs will be held to bring intergenerational stories to life at the Museum of Cambridge.

The Legacies of Windrush in the Cambridgeshire exhibition aims to help people remember the families for "hundreds of years to come". The project will collect the histories of Windrush elders and connect them with young people in the community.

It is hoped doing so will offer a "unique opportunity" to learn new skills in storytelling, oral histories, and exhibition design. (BBC news),

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I remember being told of a time when my tall, handsome uncle twice removed (not quite sure how that works) returned home to my little Caribbean country from the UK. He never told anyone why he had suddenly appeared at his mother's door with his sturdy English trunk packed full of his things.

A young and hopeful brother/son had left his country a happy man, but returned home with his spirit completely broken. He never fully recovered from whatever trauma he had endured. Uncle would leave the house everyday and walk for miles, coming home to quietly eat, rest and sleep. He never talked much, but always had a pleasant smile for everyone.

He moved to the countryside shortly after and immersed himself in farming, living in seclusion in his then vacant childhood home.

I met Uncle C in pictures, a tall, pleasant, soft spoken man, whose spirit held the essence of gentleness, but with a haunting sadness to his countenance.

He has now passed away..

It is only now that I realize that Uncle had been a part of this horrid phase of English history, named' The Windrush Scandal'.

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The Windrush Scandal is a dark chapter in British history that came to light in 2018.

It revolves around the mistreatment of the Windrush generation...people from Caribbean countries who were invited to the UK between 1948 and 1971 to help rebuild post-war Britain.

Many of these individuals, who had lived and worked in the UK for decades, were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and in some cases, actually deported.

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The scandal exposed profound institutional failures and a "hostile environment" policy that led to the wrongful treatment of these individuals. The Home Office demanded multiple documents to establish residency rights, often ignoring the fact that many of these people had been living in the UK for most of their lives.

The scandal resulted in public outcry, the resignation of the then-Home Secretary Amber Rudd, and a broader debate about immigration policies and racial discrimination.

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In response to the scandal, the UK government launched the Windrush Compensation Scheme and the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, which aimed to address the injustices faced by the Windrush generation and to prevent such failures from happening again.

Despite these efforts, many victims have yet to receive compensation, and campaigners continue to push for full implementation of the review's recommendations.

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The Windrush Scandal is a stark reminder of the importance of fair and humane immigration policies and the need to protect the rights of all individuals, regardless of their background.

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In 1948, Empire Windrush arrived at the Port of Tilbury near London, carrying 1,027 passengers and two stowaways, some of whom embarked at Trinidad, Jamaica, Mexico and Bermuda. While the passengers included people from many parts of the world, the great majority were West Indian.

Empire Windrush was not the first ship to carry a large group of West Indian people to the United Kingdom, as two other ships had arrived the previous year. But her 1948 voyage became very well-known and a symbol of post-war migration to Britain. British Caribbean people who came to the United Kingdom in the period after World War II, including those who came on other ships, are often referred to as the Windrush generation.

The Windrush scandal was a British political scandal that began in 2018 concerning people who were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and in at least 83 cases were wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office. Many of those affected had been born British subjects and had arrived in the UK before 1973, particularly from Caribbean countries, as members of the "Windrush generation" (so named after the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought one of the first groups of West Indian migrants to the UK in 1948).

In addition to those who were deported, an unknown number were detained, lost their jobs or homes, had their passports confiscated, or were denied benefits or medical care to which they were entitled. A number of long-term UK residents were refused re-entry to the UK; a larger number were threatened with immediate deportation by the Home Office.

Linked by commentators to the "hostile environment policy" instituted by Theresa May during her time as Home Secretary, the scandal led to the resignation of Amber Rudd as Home Secretary in April 2018 and the appointment of Sajid Javid as her successor. The scandal also prompted a wider debate about British immigration policy and Home Office practice.

The March 2020 independent Windrush Lessons Learned Review, conducted by the inspector of constabulary Wendy Williams, concluded that the Home Office had shown "ignorance and thoughtlessness" and that what had happened had been "foreseeable and avoidable". It further found that immigration regulations were tightened "with complete disregard for the Windrush generation" and that officials had made "irrational" demands for multiple documents to establish residency rights.

Despite a compensation scheme being announced in December 2018, by November 2021, only an estimated 5 per cent of victims had received any compensation and 23 of those eligible had died before receiving payments. Three separate Parliamentary committees had issued reports during 2021 criticizing Home Office slowness and ineffectiveness in providing redress to victims and calling for the scheme to be taken out of the hands of the Home Office.