Finding home, building community
Indu Brahmhatt’s story begins in 1972, when Ugandan President Idi Amin ordered the country’s Asian population to leave Uganda within 90 days. Like tens of thousands of Ugandan Asians, Indu was forced to make an impossible choice. Aged just 23, she fled to the UK to build a new life in safety, leaving her husband Jagbish and their six-month-old daughter behind until they could get visas and join her.
Indu arrived in Colchester to live with her mum, dad and four brothers. “It was very tough to leave my husband and daughter,” she remembers. “I missed them so much. It was a depressing time.” Even though there were only four other Indian families nearby, they supported one another, coming together for Hindu worship. Indu also remembers the wider Colchester community being welcoming.
Three year later, when Jagbish was finally granted a visa, the family could begin again together. Indu worked hard to provide for them, first at the Paxman factory in Colchester, using her typing and English skills, and later at a local trouser factory alongside women from across the town. “The staff and managers were really good,” she says. “We worked very hard.” As the Indian community in Colchester grew, Indu and her family were able to practise their Swaminarayan faith in friends’ homes.
In the late 1980s, Indu, Jagbish and her brother bought a convenience shop on Ipswich Road. Indu still remembers the early starts for newspapers at 6am, and how much they valued the community spirit. In 1991, Indu and Jagbish went on to buy the Parsons Heath Post Office, serving local people for many years until retirement. “We were very lucky,” Indu says. “People were kind to us. We like being in Colchester, liked the people.”
In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Indu needed help getting to and from hospital and began using Community360’s Transport Service. At a time when leaving the house felt daunting for many people, having reliable support made all the difference.
“I got in touch to ask if they could take me to hospital and they were so helpful,” she says. “It made the whole process so much easier for me, knowing I could rely on someone to come and get me and arrive on time. That time was hard. Some days I couldn’t get up and I was very grateful for the support. The drivers are such good people.”
Alongside transport, Indu also received support from Community360 volunteers with prescription collections and food parcels, helping her through an uncertain and frightening period.
