Tricia - Malaysia

Tricia

Speaker's Chaplain

I was born in Malaysia but have close family roots in India (grandfather), Sri Lanka (grandmother) and Australia (aunt and cousins).

On a personal level, being part of the Commonwealth connects me to various strands of my family, especially my grandmother who left Sri Lanka to live in Malaysia, where she married and brought up her family during the Japanese occupation in WW2.

When I moved to London as a young adult, occasional visits to the then Commonwealth Institute gave me a real uplifting sense of connection with my family of origin, when it was unusual to see ‘people like me’ in the media or elsewhere.