Juliet

“My name is Juliet, and many people know me as the African Wonder Woman. I’m from London, Islington, and my background is Kenyan. I’m a proud African woman! 

I’m looking for jobs and… yeah, I’m still looking. The process is sometimes very ad hoc, especially when you have a disability. I think more support for people with disabilities is needed. That is something I feel the government needs to take up, and especially give better opportunity to persons with disabilities, and work and enhance their careers, and support them in a very positive way. I believe that opportunity for all is something that many people wish for in this current climate. With the Brexit issues, you can see the rise of Xenophobia, the rise of migrants being told to “Go back home”, and words like that can be quite upsetting. I think that the issue of migrants is… everybody is a migrant, so I welcome the situation to say that we are all global citizens.

I was talking to this gentleman a few weeks back. This guy has good skills for bricklaying. He said to me, ‘The reason I can’t get a job is because I don’t have an address’. At the time, I just thought, ‘Can’t you just use a friend’s address?’, but I realised that many people are scared these days to give anybody an address to use, because of all the bureaucracy. Most of these people are on the street because either they’ve fallen out with their parents or family or had a breakdown. This man who is well-qualified, but because he doesn’t have an address, he is unemployed. I think that is sickening.

We need more support.”