28 | BOOKS
“Why did it happen? WHY ARE WE WHERE WE ARE?”
Following the release of young adult novel, Not so Black and White, its authors Sylvia Vetta and Nancy Hunt discuss Covid in Kenya, police brutality, Cecil Rhodes and the teaching of black history SYLVIA VETTA is a freelance writer and speaker. She is author of Brushstrokes in Time, Sculpting the Elephant and now, Not so Black and White (all published by Claret Press). “I couldn’t write with anyone better than Sylvia.” -Nancy Hunt Reading The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
NANCY HUNT is the 13th daughter of a Luhya tribal chief in western Kenya. She moved to the UK and had a successful career as a leadership trainer for Thames Valley Police. She founded the Nasio Trust charity to support orphaned and vulnerable children back in her homeland and established the Exit 7 programme to help young people in the UK who were drifting into antisocial behaviour or had lost direction. In recognition of her achievements transforming young people’s lives, Nancy was awarded the NatWest Most Inspirational Woman 2015 award. “You have to give young people a vision, make them feel they’re worthwhile. Nancy has done that, she’s changed the lives of so many young people.” -Sylvia Vetta Reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
OX MAGAZINE JULY 2020
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round the same time Katie Isbester of Claret Press asked Sylvia Vetta for a novella, Nancy Hunt – Nasio Trust director – asked the Sculpting the Elephant author to write a book with her. “I think she meant non-fiction,” Vetta says over Zoom one evening, but the pair went about penning the requested novella which then became the novel: Not so Black and White. She’s just started talking about the title’s rewrites when Hunt joins the meeting from Kenya, where she frequently visits to support Nasio’s projects and team. She’s been there since February, her 18 March flight back to the UK not possible due to Covid-19. She recalls watching the news in lockdown, not knowing what to do until a friend rang her and said: “Nancy, where there’s a crisis, there’s also an opportunity: you need to get out there and sensitise people.” “The World Health Organization,” she says, “was talking about prevention in relation to handwashing, social distancing and sanitisation – the three things Africa doesn’t have.” People live in congested spaces, water is “a bit of a luxury”, and soap even more so – growing up in Kenya, she was told a bar of soap should last the family a month, so had to be used sparingly. There are also people there with no access to television or radio, she says, who are completely unaware of coronavirus. With 340 community
Photo: Helen Peacocke
Young people go through a lot of challenges and adversity within the system, just because of the colour of their skin.
