Windrush 2024  - update June 2nd 2024 

This year the North Wales Jamaica Society is working with North Wales Fire Brigade Services to raise awareness about the Windrush story.

We supported a Windrush Day at the Fire Station in Rhyl for representatives from Fire Stations across NW,and we are currently negotiating with Holyhead Fire Station where one of our active NWJS members, Geoff Millar works as a retained fireman. Geoff was brought up in Jamaica, settling in Holyhead with his family relatively recently.  

When we were approached by the Fire Station Team in Rhyl, we reassured them that there would be Welsh Government funds available to help us work with them to recognise Windrush Day 2024.

When we didn’t hear about this funding, we considered scaling down our ideas. However now the Welsh Government has released funds, we can explain the ideas we have in our application for £2,000 funding.

This is part of a bigger project which links North Wales Fire Services with the Fire Services in Clarendon, Jamaica. The aim of the wider project, which is part of the Jamaica Wales Alliance, is to identify a reconditioned fire engine to add to the Fire Services vehicle resources in Clarendon, Jamaica.

The NWJS Committee decided that this project was to become our National Windrush Day 2024 project, managing these events with speakers, Jamaican food and displays – and also with live Zoom links to Jamaica.

We are fortunate that NWJS Chair, Garrick Prayogg, fully understands the issues and challenges that many of the Windrush Generations are facing and he leads the ‘Justice for Windrush Generations’ work in North Wales.