Interview with Kateryna Onyiliogwu, Co-Founder of International Community Project
Sofia Bianchini
‘Do you know the building at 59 Brick Lane? It’s one of the oldest standing in East London and it’s a mosque; but it has not always been a Muslim temple. Throughout its 270 years of life, it has hosted people of all sorts of religions: from Protestants, to Jews, to Muslims. It was called Neuve Eglise, when French Protestants fleeing the Catholic oppression built it as their church; in 1809 it briefly turned into the headquarters of the London Society for Propagating Christianity Amongst the Jews and, in 1819, it was already a Methodist Church. It was used as a Synagogue and as a Torah school until the 60s, when the Jewish community was replaced by Indian and Bangladeshi immigrants. Nowadays it’s called Brick Lane Jamme Masjid Mosque and it’s probably the greatest witness of East London’s cultural and historical transformation.’ That’s what Kateryna Onyiliogwu tells me, as soon as we start talking about the newly started International Community Project. She is one of the co-founders and sees the mosque as the perfect metaphor for London, ‘a city defined by migration’.
The symbolic building is not just an example of the diversity of the metropolis, but also an inspiration for the project, started by a few students of Politics from the University of Westminster and now comprising young illustrators and editors working on its next issue. ‘We want to explore London’s local spaces and communities to go beyond the conventional arenas of power. To understand social behaviours and events, we have to understand their context; we aim to do so by visiting community centres and talking to their people’ Kateryna explains ‘We have already met Kurdish, Bangladeshi and Somali communities, but this is just the beginning of a project trying to unveil the cultural, sociological and economical dimensions composing London’s complex reality’
Kateryna describes the things she has discovered as ‘revelations’, especially because of the vast diversity of people that she has happened to encounter and interview. From the representatives of Bangladeshi communities, to Ecuadorian cleaners who had to flee their country, the project has given voice to unheard stories, bringing together personal experiences and facts. ‘The International Community Project is a platform to share ideas, facts and knowledge, regarding political, cultural, ethnical or even literary aspects of London’s communities. That is why we welcome people with any background to join our project. Poets, editors, illustrators and researchers have helped us a lot, no matter what their education or skills are’ the co-founder says ‘being London the world’s most diverse city, people belonging to different groups can bring us vibrant and various first-hand information, helping us defining and understanding the city’s melting-pot of identities’
The International Community Project’s webpage comprises also a section with upcoming events organized by different communities around London. Keep an eye on their page to know what’s going on in your own city, in a different community.
