Written by Lorraine Ballintine
As a counsellor, wellbeing facilitator and member of the Rekindling Nello James Steering Group, my role in this project is shaped by both professional grounding and personal connection.
The Rekindling Nello James project feels so significant to me. It mirrors my own journey of finding home through heritage, connection and shared storytelling. The project preserves the power, pride and activism of Caribbean and African Manchester, a history I didn’t grow up inside, but one I’ve grown into with respect, gratitude and responsibility. Being part of this work allows me to honour the elders, educators and everyday people who built community here with heart and resistance. It lets me contribute to a legacy that is bigger than any one of us: a legacy of cultural ownership, radical learning and collective memory.
Being offered the opportunity to weave wellbeing into this project feels not just beneficial, but essential. The memories we are holding, the histories we are surfacing, and the stories we are inviting carry both beauty and pain. Integrating wellbeing practices ensures that as we revive these narratives, we also protect the people sharing them. It brings care, grounding and emotional safety into a process that requires courage and vulnerability.
As we move through the emotional landscape of heritage work, the pride, the grief, the remembering and the reclaiming the Wellbeing Toolkit becomes a vital companion. It provides practical guidance, grounding techniques and reflective practices that help participants, community members and project partners navigate the weight of the stories we’re holding. The toolkit ensures that our collective remembering does not overwhelm but instead supports healing, resilience and connection. It helps us honour the legacy of the Nello James Centre in a way that centres care, strengthens community, and safeguards the emotional wellbeing of everyone involved.
The Wellbeing Toolkit
This was created as a quiet companion to this project, something steady, grounding and available to anyone moving through the emotional landscape of Rekindling Nello James. I was asked to create a Wellbeing Toolkit because the team recognised how deeply this work touches on memory, identity, pride and pain, and they wanted a supportive resource shaped by someone who understands both emotional care and community-held storytelling.
As we hold stories of resistance, belonging and legacy, it feels important to have something that gently supports the people doing that holding. The toolkit offers simple practices, moments of pause and ways to look after ourselves so that the work remains safe, sustainable and rooted in compassion. In many ways, it mirrors the heart of the project itself: honouring heritage, protecting community, and ensuring that as we bring these histories forward, we do so with care for everyone involved. You can read and download it here.
Ubuntu Space
“I am because we are”
Curating and hosting the Ubuntu Space at the Stories of Nello James event felt like creating a soft landing within a powerful gathering. The stories shared that day carried history, emotion and ancestral weight, and the Ubuntu Space offered a gentle pause, a place to breathe, reflect and ground.
My role was simply to hold that space with care, ensuring that anyone who needed a moment of calm, connection or quiet support could find it. It became a reminder that community storytelling is not only about what is spoken, but also about how we tend to ourselves and each other in the process.
You can read more about my reflections here: www.howlitetherapy.com/blog