My name is Tracy Browne, well part of my name is. I have lived in the East end all my life and thoroughly enjoy my east end life. I have three children, two live in Hackney and one in Newham. And I have one granddaughter. My mother and stepfather live in Newham, while I have a sister, two nieces and a great nephew who live in Hackney. On the island of Antigua and Barbuda I have a sister and a nephew.

I started out as a Nursery Nurse, then thought I would be great at admin so learnt IT skills and touch typing, but that was not to be and after working as a nursery nurse for 8.5 years I left my job to start and finish a degree in Informal and Community Education. This was the beginning of my Youth Work career which took me from east London to south and brought me right back to the East of London.

After being diagnosed with MS and deciding my full-time job, as a Youth Work Area Coordinator, was very unfulfilling. I left that job to focus more on the development of my Assessing and teaching skills. I completed my PTTLS and working with young people took a back seat. I began to teach and assess youth work all over London. Then Youth Work took a sudden nosedive and very few people were interested in becoming a Youth Worker and that’s when I ended up in Health and Social care, but guess what? I would be teaching it to young people who would not achieve much in their GCSE, so they were given the opportunity to gain a vocational qualification.

I love carnival. I have been the bands bar manager for at least 10 years and thoroughly enjoy the hard work and excitement on both days of Notting Hill Carnival. My daughters and son are all involved in carnival from designing and making costumes as well as production, stewarding and help making over 1,000 bottles of rum punch. Where possible my family and I attend whatever carnival, we can in the Caribbean.

And in between all of this I received the call, and at first, I listened and attended all of the required meetings with the necessary people, then I bailed. I bailed for a number of years until the call came again and I started the discernment process, from beginning theology for two years to a pastoral course, BAP excepted, theological college and now I am here with you.

I am very interested in contextual Theology and Liberation Theology and my sermons thus far says a lot about this. I am keen to represent the people and Jesus Christ through the Gospel as well as through contextual theology. I believe my theology needs to fit my context and further develop through my interactions with God and the community.

Looking forward to meeting more of you,

Tracy Browne