Faith Aisien-Ezugwu

5 hours ago

5 min read

Migration Poetry and the Responsibility of Building a Better Medway

TENS-2026-009 | 10 Black Voices of Medway 2026

Faith Aisien-Ezugwu {Portrait Photography} Chatham - Masumi, M: 2026

Faith Aisien-Ezugwu connects professional work, poetry and reflection on the place she calls home.

Speaking with me for TENS, she discusses moving from Nigeria to Britain, the values she learned from her parents and the experience of finding a voice through writing.

Her account also asks what residents can do to improve Medway.

Personal history and civic responsibility meet in a conversation that recognises both the work of becoming visible and the importance of paying attention to the surroundings shared with others.

A life across places

Faith's interview summary recalls moving from Nigeria to Britain at thirteen and an experience of boarding school. That transition belongs to the background of the adult life she describes, including work, family and the process of understanding herself over time.

By the interview, she had lived in Medway for about twelve years. She remembers volunteering with Sure Start after arriving and later working with the local clinical commissioning group. At the time of the conversation, she describes her role as an NHS project manager.

These details give a local history of participation through both voluntary and professional activity. Arriving in an area is not only a change of address. It can lead to new responsibilities, relationships and ways of contributing. Faith's account places those stages within her own experience rather than presenting them as a model everyone must follow.

Lessons from her parents

When reflecting on her work ethic, Faith returns to her parents. Both were entrepreneurs, and she remembers their hard work and determination. The values she associates with them include perseverance and the expectation that results require effort.

She is careful to distinguish working towards a goal from stepping over other people. Success, in her account, should not require disregarding someone else. The foundation matters as much as the outcome, including the relationships around a person and the way they conduct themselves while trying to progress.

This is one way cultural inheritance becomes visible within everyday life. A value learned in a family may later influence professional decisions, parenting and expectations of a community. It does not need to take the form of a ceremony or object to remain significant.

Writing to become visible

Faith describes her poetry collection. I Am Here as a record of her journey and the challenges she has encountered. Writing provided a way to express how she saw life through her own experience. She associates the work with spoken word, where language can move from a private page into an encounter with listeners.

The title carries a concern with being seen. In the interview, she reflects on a movement from feeling unseen towards recognising her own presence and belonging to herself. The discussion makes room for boundaries as well as recognition. Visibility is not only something granted by other people; it can also involve how a person understands and claims their own life.

Her writing therefore contributes a different perspective alongside her professional role. A job title identifies responsibilities, but it cannot explain everything a person has experienced. Poetry gives her another vocabulary through which to communicate and make connections with people who recognise something of their own lives in hers.

Listening to other journeys

Faith also describes interviewing people about their experiences through a podcast. The title is not standardised here because its spelling is unclear in the automatic transcript. The purpose she explains is clearer: conversations with people from different walks of life about how they have moved through challenges.

That interest connects her own writing with attention to other voices. A person who has struggled to be seen may also become interested in creating opportunities for others to speak. The interview records both sides of that relationship without assuming that one experience automatically produces the other.

Her account includes reflections on non-visible disability and neurodivergence. This public-facing summary does not assign a diagnosis or turn those comments into a complete explanation of her life. It recognises her concern about judgement and the limits of assuming that another person's circumstances can be understood from appearance.

Faith and personal values

Her Catholic faith forms another important part of the conversation. She describes belief as a foundation while allowing room for questioning and acknowledging other religions. She also makes a distinction between outward participation in religious practice and the character a person demonstrates.

The emphasis is personal. Religious attendance alone does not, in her view, settle whether someone behaves well towards others. Her reflections connect belief with conduct, rather than presenting a simple division between those who belong to a faith community and those who do not.

Caring about Medway

The later discussion turns towards Gillingham and Chatham. Faith expresses concern about cleanliness, maintenance and the quality of local businesses.

She wants to see places improve and recognises that affordability must remain part of that discussion. These are opinions offered by a resident who cares about the area, not an independent assessment of every local service or business.

Her summary also emphasises supporting African-owned businesses and making better use of opportunities for community participation.

The question is not only what an institution should provide but also how residents engage with the resources and decisions affecting their neighbourhoods. Within TENS, Faith's contribution preserves a connection between self-expression and public life. Her experiences of migration, family values and creative work sit alongside an interest in Medway's future.

The account invites readers to consider visibility as both personal and civic: whose story is heard, whose needs are recognised and how people take part in shaping their shared home.

Libraries enter the wider discussion as examples of resources that are available locally but depend on people knowing about and using them.

This adds a practical question to Faith's concern with participation: how do residents encounter opportunities, and what encourages them to become involved? The account does not offer a single answer. It preserves a conversation about responsibility and access, including the possibility that people and organisations need better connections.

For a library collection, keeping that reflection is particularly appropriate. The institution becomes both a place where local experience is preserved and one of the resources residents are considering when they imagine a better future.

About this collection

An edited account based on the supplied oral-history transcript extract and interview summary. Personal recollections are attributed to the narrator; this article is not a verbatim transcript.

Supported by the Medway Heritage Place Project, with funding from Medway Council and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. With thanks to National Lottery players.

Interview, editorial adaptation and project direction by Michi Masumi — Anthropology, Art & AI. Published through the Benjamin Zephaniah Digital Archives & Library, an initiative led by Michi Masumi. Portrait photography by Michi Masumi unless otherwise credited; Leslie Haynes family photographs supplied through Russell Haynes, with original photographers credited where known.