POSTPONED: Where is 'home' for Shamima Begum?

This event has be postponed due to unforeseen circumstances. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. 

Shamima Begum, aged 15, left London with her friends to join the so-called Islamic State. Now 8 years later, she is held in an ISIS detention camp in Syria, and has had her citizenship revoked.

She has spent the past five years seeking to overturn this decision, wanting to return home to the UK. Her case raises the question of ‘home’ for many – why did she leave home? What was home like in the terrorist state and in the detention camp? Can she ever be ‘at home’ in the UK again? Her experience and the decisions by the Home Secretary, raise a number of legal and social issues, that have ramifications for all of us – including how can Birmingham be a better home for all young Brummies?

The University of Birmingham, in conjunction with the ERC, are delighted to host investigative journalist Josh Baker in conversation with Carys Evans, Head of Impact at ConnectFutures, to discuss Shamima Begum’s experiences. The event will be followed by a Q&A.

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ConnectFutures is a Birmingham based organisation empowering young people to navigate complex challenges including disinformation, extremism, anti-racism, hate and violence. To date they’ve worked with 245,768 young people and 51,000 professionals and communities nationally.

Josh Baker is an investigative journalist who details Shamima Begum's journey and interviews her in the second series of his podcast “I am not a Monster”. ConnectFutures is a local NGO that supports young people against extremism. It has helped equip hundreds of thousands of young people across the West Midlands against hate crime, racism, extremism and bullying.

This event is supported by the University of Birmingham and the ERC project 'Urban Terrorism in Europe (2004-19): Remembering, Imagining, and Anticipating Violence https://blog.bham.ac.uk/urbterr/