Chagossian Voices: Stronger Together
Chagossian Voices is a community platform for the Chagossian global diaspora. Made up of members of the community from Crawley, Manchester and Derby in the UK and working alongside groups in Mauritius and the Seychelles, they provide communication between Chagossians, and present Chagossian priorities to the wider world, particularly to those with the power and influence to improve their lives.
Since they launched in October 2020, Chagossian Voices has organised a major international conference (December 2020), organised several meetings with the FCDO and the Home Office, liaised and partnered with established Chagossian community groups and presented Chagossian priorities to the UK parliament’s Chagos APPG. In addition, they organised a submission to the consultation for the UK government’s New Plan for Immigration alongside a petition from the community with 500 signatures.
They continue to lobby many organisations, including the UN, in order to ensure that Chagossian voices are heard, and they aim for co-operation between Chagossian groups and community leaders, whilst providing the Chagossian community with accurate and upto-date information.
CCT is very proud to be partnering with this dynamic group to develop a community website that will be a great resource for the community and for people wanting to learn more about the community and the Chagos Archipelago.
We hope this will be a long-term relationship that can ensure all our work has community input and we’re starting by recruiting a community member to join the 2022 expedition as a research assistant. Over 40 community members completed the Connect Chagos programme that ran until 2015 and we’re hoping some people would like to get involved again.
To find out more about Chagossian Vocies, visit their Facebook page.