A Simple Mangia 876 Vision
When I was a child my world was books. We were poor but my mother always made sure I had books. Books by the score. I loved books so much that I would sometimes lay them out like a giant puzzle and look at their colourful covers. This happened more often than not after assorted major or minor flooding catastrophes which forced me to take them outside to get sun-dried. I lived Andrew Salkey's Hurricane on those days.
In this world of books there were other worlds, other countries, other lives. Rarely were there other little girls like me. And somewhere in that young me a kernel formed which would eventually push me out of Jamaica and into those worlds of imagination.I had seen the world ofJjean DaCosta's Escape to Last Man's Peak and I knew all about Miguel Street and Cricket in the Road, I lived them. I wanted to see those other worlds, the heaths the Famous Five solved mysteries on ( avoiding coves for fear of smugglers though). Tea, scones, jam, treacle were familiar tastes for me long before I had my first cream tea in Kensington. The Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers made France a must, Dickens' London, Shakespeare's Italy. I had to see them all and be there. I had to be the little girl that looked like me that I never saw in those landscapes.
Seeing real the places in my imagination have changed me. Walking along roads on which gods would have rained down vengeance have made me different. I see the wide expanse of humanity and I feel my connection to it. I am Jamaican, always will be but I am also
more. I am human and that is who I am first and last.
With Mangia 876 I want to have a chance to help other children see more, so that they can be more. See more worlds through books and opportunity. Through travel and cultural connection. To know that their own worlds are never as small as they think they are and that anything and every thing is possible for you. Your only bar is your imagination. And if you broaden your imagination exploration is the natural result. That they are a part of this wonderful, crazy sea of humanity, they are connected and no less important than any one else.
Mangia 876 will grow because it has an imagination which is many times the size of mine. It will grow with more support, more supporters and as it grows it will help others grow. Mangia will grow because it is not about me, it is about a community which recognises that there is nothing greater than the community and nothing works unless everybody gets it.
There is no accounting for the impact of one act, one book, one trip, one shared interaction, one discussion, one meal. It can change the course of a life. And with the recognition of that responsibility I consider it Mangia's duty to make all actions acts of truth and integrity.
Always.