18 August, 2022
In August 1972, Ugandan dictator General Idi Amin served 90 days’ notice on around 70,000 Asians to leave Uganda. Each family was permitted to take only £55 and one suitcase per individual. 28,200 of these who held British passports were admitted to the UK. The then government set up the Uganda Resettlement Board to assist the expellees to find permanent homes, jobs and school places. Sixteen temporary resettlement camps around the country were set up and staffed in just six weeks. Charities, faith groups, campaigning organisations and private individuals in their thousands stepped forward to provide much needed support in those critical early months. This extraordinary feat of cooperation has strong contemporary relevance. Fifty years on, British Ugandan Asians have excelled in many fields from business and finance to politics, science, and the arts. British Ugandan Asians at 50 is a programme of the India Overseas Trust. We have received funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to record, on film, the oral histories of people who were involved in the camps as residents, volunteers or paid staff. We have focused on three of the Board’s resettlement camps: Tonfanau in Wales, Stradishall in Suffolk and Heathfield in Devon.
1 August, 2022
The NHS is close to all of our hearts – now more than ever. From the very beginning, people have come to Britain from all over the world to make this grand vision for a better society a reality. The NHS would not have become the beloved institution it is today without its international workers. But their vital role has largely been ignored.
Heart of the Nation: Migration and the Making of the NHS is a digital exhibition that puts this vital story at centre stage through oral histories and archival materials, as well as art, animations and data visualisations.
18 January, 2022
This collection of artefacts, historical events and personal stories offers an initial insight, for secondary school students, into the impact of historical genocides.
18 January, 2022
This lesson plan uses the story of Martha Blend and other Kindertransportees to discuss the Kindertransport program and the lives it affected.
What happened to the Kindertransport children? – This lesson is suitable for 11–14-year-old students. Through testimony, artefacts and memorials it introduces the history of the Kindertransport – a programme that rescued 10,000 children from the Nazis. It is suitable for use in a range of subjects – such as History, Art and Design, English, RE, PSHE, Citizenship.
Produced in partnership with The Harwich Kindertransport Memorial and Learning Trust, and with thanks to the BBC and The Wiener Holocaust Library.
In this lesson, your students will:
-Learn about Kindertransportee Martha Blend and her autograph book
-Hear what happened to arriving children who didn’t have foster families to go to through historic photos and a rare BBC audio recording of the children and young people themselves
-Explore a new memorial currently in construction and hear from the sculptor himself
View and download the resource here
