Passion, is the best word to describe Nelly Adam. Her voice has become known and her conviction about her cause synonymous with Black Lives Matter in Wales.
Nelly was born in London to parents of Kenyan descent and Indian heritage. She moved to Cardiff with her family when she was 11 years old.
“Life didn’t make sense" she explains, I learned everything i needed to throughout my education and excelled in everything I did but I didn’t seem to fit in”. That was until she grew up and learned things she wasn’t taught. “Despite believing to the core I was British, as i was born and raised in Britain, I was never treated as that” she adds. My life has been mapped out and I have had experiences, which no amount of education could have taught me. I gained knowledge. Through that knowledge, I gained wisdom.
On the 6th of June 2020, when the entire world broke out in protest following the tragic death of George Floyd, something ignited in me. In that moment my entire life perspective made sense. I was there to speak. When I spoke, it all came together and I realized all of my experiences have been lessons to carve a path of knowledge to enable me to do what I am doing today. This is where my activism began.
"I couldn’t sit in silence with everything going on around us”. Nelly went on to expain that as a muslim woman, it was her sole choice to wear the hijab. "I thought if I wear the hijab I can help break the stigma that the media had potrayed about muslim people. That was when I truly experienced extreme racism. Immediately people I had known for many years turned on me. I couldnt understand why people around me were forming this opinions because i chose to wear a scarf".
"It made me realize I truly love being a Muslim woman. I love my faith because of its teachings of kindness, harmony, balance and inclusivity. It teaches me that there is no colour in religion". She finds it unacceptable that simply by putting material over her hair she immediately became subjected to racism.
Nelly is the eldest sibling with a 30 year generation difference and she realizes her siblings are experiencing the same acts of racism that she has endured during her life. She states, “The history we are taught is not the past, it is present. Historical racism has never been dealt with and people are still suffering today because of that". During the Bute park protest, Nelly felt she needed to speak. Nelly stated that it was such an educational and pivotal moment to make thousands of people understand why we were there and that racism was still real.
Nelly Adam
Bute Park was a part of a worldwide demonstration and Nelly says "she was there to support" but it only took minutes for her to realize she was there for a purpose. “ Something was brewing in me and it was a bizarre moment, she explains, I knew i had to stand and speak so i took the microphone. I stood on the platform and I spoke from my heart exposing my raw emotions. I did not realise there would be so much press around. When I speak, I speak from the heart and everything I say is real. Humanity is losing the ability to be kind and live in harmony with each other. We are losing our etiquettes”.
When asked about the time it will take for the situation to change she says, “everything takes as long as the functions and mechanisms built within the systems. I believe if we all acknowledge that racism is truly embedded within the systems then changes can happen at a quicker pace". The Welsh Government heard us. Since the Black Live Matters protests, the Welsh goverment wrote the race equlity action plan (REAP) which i was also a part of. They committed to create an anti-racist Wales by 2030.
She went on to say that we don’t want people to just talk about it. The reality is that we are going into 2022, two years on from the first protest. I believe we have the ability to do more and speed things up but this can only happen if everybody gets behind it and stand to embed the value of an anti racist Wales, holding people accountable to acts of racism”.
Nelly believes education is key and should be at the forefront of the movement. Children are not born with racial or radical views but the values that chidren have are embedded by their surroundings. To make changes, we need to start from childhood. This mean an all inclusive educational system where children are taught about all other cultures and see themselves represented within the teaching and understand why diversity is so important to life.
Nelly states - “this generation is completely different and so much more advanced. What people forget is the internet is accessible to children and adults alike. It is a tool of education and information for all. The web has the ability to expose issues that tv and radio no longer has the control over. You only have to look at the tragic events of George Floyd – its not as if the media broke that story. That story was leaked all over the internet by a bystander with a mobile phone. That video went viral before the media was able to post about it”.
Nelly firmly believes the younger generation are smart and highly educated but the people in high positions come from an older era. She questions how the future will evolve if younger people are not utilized as change agents and put into positions where their voices and experiences can be heard in a safe space and are able to make decisions to help change the future of our policies.
She says “ Wouldn’t it be better to be proactive instead of being reactive? The reason i say this is because the policies we are writing today would affect the younger generartion as they enter adulthood. As this will affect them in the future, shouldn't their voices be the foundation of all these polices?
Read the second part of Nelly Adams story and views in the
next edition of Africa Welsh News