Building Bridges: How Nomsa Became a Community Champion in Manchester

When Nomsa Dube arrived in Manchester fourteen years ago with a nursing qualification and a suitcase, she knew few people and the English weather was nothing like she had imagined. Today she runs the Bulawayo UK Community Association — a grassroots organisation that supports newly arrived Zimbabweans with accommodation guidance, job application help, and a warm home-cooked meal every Sunday.

“The hardest part wasn’t the cold,” she laughs. “It was the silence. In Bulawayo there is always noise, always neighbours, always someone to talk to. Here I had to build that community from scratch.”

The Association now has over 400 members across the Manchester and Salford area, and recently launched a bursary fund for children of Zimbabwean nurses to attend university.

Nomsa still sends money home every month and is building a family home in Hillside, Bulawayo — a house she hopes to retire to. “Zimbabwe will always be home. Manchester is just where I am working.”