Adolescence Painful, greasy, smelly, hormonal, angry are just a few of the names attributed to adolescents. On one hand, some professionals, including social workers, forget the uphill struggles and peer pressures associated with teenager years. Some think they were...
Jake Cox – Mental Health Advocate Jake (30) originally hails from Southeast London, but this working-class lad now considers St Mary’s Island in Chatham his new home. He moved there three years ago with his wife as he always wanted to live by the water. He was fed up...
I met with the delightful Shea in Rochester, and over tea and cake, we discussed recent events affecting trans people in the UK. As one of the first authors in the UK to publish a book about trans people in 2017, I am no stranger to trans issues. Since then, much...
Gillingham Football Club recently issued a lifetime ban to a young fan following a racist incident during a football match. This led me to wonder if such incidents were frequent or isolated in this geographical area of Kent, which has a population of 270,000 and is...
The 2021 census (excluding Scotland) showed that 262,000 (0.5%) of the population declared their gender identity different to their birth gender. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights estimates that at least one out of every fifteen people in Europe has a gender...
A Recent Podcast with Asrar Rashid on Islam & Homosexuality - please follow this LINK or copy and paste https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpKBRIUXDGs Declan Henry is a creative non-fiction writer and comes from a distinguished academic background. He studied at two...
‘Irish Traveller’ is a state-imposed term. The Traveller community instead refer to themselves as ‘Pavee’ or ‘Mincéir’, which are words from Shelta (otherwise called ‘Cant’ or ‘Gammon’), the Irish Traveller language. Travellers have been in Ireland since pre-Celtic...
Viktor was born in 1996 in Moldova, where being gay is still controversial, taboo, and unacceptable. Moldova is an ex-communist country with traditional views about family, sexuality, and gender. Being gay is something to be ashamed of, and gay people often fear...
Near where I live, there is a long bridge. One Sunday morning I was walking over it and noticed a young man taking off his socks and placing them in his trainers. A woman approached him and as I got closer she told me the young man wanted to kill himself. I placed my...
I was in London recently and passed the old night shelter in Dean Street in Soho where I did voluntary work with young homeless people in the1990s. Here is an article I wrote 10 years ago about my experiences. Centrepoint remains the country’s leading national charity...
Right-wing populist political figures along with some tabloid press often portray refugees and asylum seekers in a negative light. Dishonest information is disseminated, insinuating these people are bogus and have come here for a better life, free housing and to cheat...
The room was dark. I could still hear him breathing. I was sitting in an armchair at the bottom of the bed, trying my best to remain awake, but eventually, I succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep. For the three previous nights, I had slept on a mattress at the end...
