Our Story

 
 

It all started when…

Deborah and Caroline, two old friends from opposite ends of London, woke up one day with the realisation they needed to get out more.

Having recently become first-time mums they were at a career crossroads and found themselves missing the freewheeling days of world travel that had played a big part of their twenties. They talked about how their itinerant immigrant family history had possibly given them itchy feet.

In sharing their own stories - a unique cocktail of Jewish, Hindu and Catholic backgrounds (with Italian and Indian thrown into the mix) - they realised that while they had known each other for years and years they didn’t know very much about each others culture, food or traditions.

In fact, while they had both travelled far and wide and explored hidden gems in the four corners of the world - they hadn’t ever visited temples, mosques, or synagogues on their doorsteps in London.

Thirsty for even the teensiest bit of adventure, they started to plan visits to new neighbourhoods, venturing into different places of worship, trying out new foods, and asking patient shopkeepers and innocent passers-by many questions.

It was when they began enthusiastically recounting their tales to friends and family that the idea of SharedCity first emerged.

Deborah and Caroline set out to encourage more Londoners to join them ‘to travel the world without leaving London’. The idea was simple: to have fun and to learn more about our neighbours religions, culture and food. What was the point of living in such a wonderful diverse city if we didn’t make the most of it?

They carefully curated tours to LIttle India, Little Italy, Little Lagos - and more.

Scroll forward ten years… and SharedCity is now a community interest company and has grown to include three additional female directors: Chrstine, Irina and Rachel.

Find out more by clicking our team page here.

Between us we continue to celebrate community and heritage by telling and sharing our stories. In whatever way works, including:

All our work is project-based and we try to choose the most fun exciting and intriguing directions whether we are working with funders, community groups, education establishments, public or private sector organisations. We want to better understand the history of our communities, decolonise narratives and make heritage accessible and fascinating for all.

More than anything, we love to connect so feel free to drop us a line to talk about ideas, collaborations and dreams.

Thanks for stopping by to hear our story!