Maxine Johnson, Organisational Development Practitioner - Inclusion, is based at Canary Wharf. Maxine is also the BartsAbility Site Lead for Canary Wharf.
"I have been working at Barts NHS Trust since January 2018, and currently on a secondment working as an OD Practitioner – Inclusion Centre, delivering CQ Masterclass training to the workforce."
"BartsAbility are hosting a hybrid celebration on the 2nd December 2022 for International Day of Persons with Disabilities, please look out for registration. We welcome everyone to attend and have monthly online meetings. We are looking for allies to support BartsAbility and all our colleagues, who are Neurodivergent, have a long-term health condition or a learning disability, we truly want this trust to be a workplace that everyone feels they belong."
The Book of Negroes - Lawrence Hill
Based on a true story, Lawrence Hill's epic novel spans three continents and six decades to bring to life a dark and shameful chapter in our history through the story of one brave and resourceful woman.
Abducted from her West African village at the age of eleven and sold as a slave in the American South, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom - and of finding her way home again.
Maxine says: "This is a fiction book that tells the story of a young woman taken from her home in West Africa at 11years old to live on a plantation in South Carolina, and then journeys to New York to register her name into the Book of Negroes, a historic British military ledger that allowed 3,000 Black Loyalists to sail from Manhattan to Nova Scotia, Canada. The story shows her resilience through a world hostile to her sex and colour. Also, it is based on historical events, and the writer brings it alive."
Becoming - Michelle Obama
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States.
Maxine says: "Very inspirational book about her personal experiences and a memoir of former first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama. The book talks about her roots and how she found her voice, as well as her time in the White House and her public health campaign."
Forever - Judy Blume
A book ahead of its time – and remains, after forty years in print, a teenage bestseller from the award-winning Judy Blume.
Maxine says: "My first teenage book about relationships, I really enjoyed it and I also brought this book for my girls when they became teenagers. It helped me to understand relationships and that it’s not going to be perfect but that is ok!"
Cane River - Lalita Tademy
Set among the plantations in deepest Louisiana, CANE RIVER follows the lives of five generations of women from the time of slavery in the early 1800s into the early years of the 20th century.
Maxine says: "This is a story of four generations of African American women based on one family's meticulously researched past, whose journey from slavery to freedom begins on a Creole plantation in Louisiana. Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family."
Slave - Mende Nazer
Slave is a shocking first-person insight into the modern day slave trade. It is also a fascinating memoir of an African childhood and a moving testimony to a young girl's indomitable spirit in the face of adversity.
Maxine says: "A dreadful true story of contemporary slavery: a young girl, snatched from her tribal village in Africa, survives enslavement in Sudan and London before making a courageous escape to freedom. Once freed, she went to study at a college that I once taught at and a colleague of mine taught her ESOL, and she shared her experiences with them"
The Fat Lady Sings - Jacqueline Roy
Placed in a psychiatric unit, Gloria and Merle are forced to reassess their lives. They realize that the pain and loss that have brought them to where they are reveal more of the weakness of the system than any failure of the human spirit.
Maxine says: "This is a story of two black women from a Caribbean background and it provides an eye-opening look into mental health in Britain: set in the 1990s in London the novel is narrated by two Black women who have been diagnosed with mental illnesses and sectioned into a psychiatric hospital."
Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee - Meera Syal
There’s no such thing as a happy ending , is there …?
Sunita - perfect housewife - is married to Akash, but is her marriage what it seems?
Chila - warm, loveable - has married with great fanfare the entrepreneur Deepak. But are they really in love?
Tania - beautiful, rebellious - has rejected her traditional upbringing for a top television career. But is she really as tough as she says?
Maxine says: "I watched this on TV, a story about three women from South East Asian heritage and is middle-aged women living in London, England. Chila, a nice Punjabi girl married to the urbane Deepak, and her two childhood confidants: Sunita, the former activist law student, now an overweight, depressed housewife and mother; and the chic, beautiful Tania, who has rejected marriage in favour of a high-powered career. "
Record:
"The Goodness of God by Israel Houghton - (267) Goodness of God - Israel Houghton & NewBreed (Lyrics Video) - YouTube"
Luxury Item:
"The luxury item I would take is hand cream."