I moved from Barbados to the rural county of Norfolk in England on July 4th 2006. For me, the symbolic significance of this date, typically associated with American independence, is profound. Moving to the UK has been a truly liberating experience for me.

The experience of moving to Norwich in particular - England's most haunted city, it is claimed - requires a more complicated description. As readers anywhere in the UK might imagine, to move from ideological generalizations about the liberties we enjoy as a nation, to a discussion of the liberties (or limitations) we individually and collectively experience at a practical, local, day-to-day level, is to wrestle with far more variegated, uneven material. The fabric of this reality is more variably textured and multicoloured.

Norwich Nous is dedicated to an exploration of this reality. It is an excercise in localization of the Intelek International vision and as such, is dedicated to a detailed treatment of Norwich's multilayered, multifaceted reality.

My vision is that Norwich Nous will become a popular source of information for all things Norwich (and Norfolk) as well as a gateway to engagement with ideas, issues and personalities of interest and relevance to readers throughout the UK, and even internationally.

I am mindful that the attainment of this goal is heavily dependent on this publication's success in establishing meaningful, mutually rewarding relationships with individuals, businesses, governmental and non-governmental agencies - in a word, the people of Norwich - and I will be pursuing these relationships tirelessly.

Happily, I won't be starting from scratch in this regard. In the three years that I have been living in Norwich, I've managed to establish a number of friendships, business and other relationships that I am sure will make the work of Norwich Nous much easier than it might otherwise be.

The support of friends and colleagues at Surlingham Community Primary School, Norwich Justice and Peace, Domino's Pizza, the University of East Anglia, Rainbow Nations, the Ishan Mosque, Norfolk and Norwich racial Equality Commission and many other persons and entities has aided me and my family's adjustment to life in Norwich greatly.

Not all encounters or "engagements" have been helpful, of course. As in all forms of human contact, conflicts are a certainty. The challenge for me, as for all of us, has been and continues to be to maintain a degree of openess and optimism: a consciouness and confidence that every challenge (or challenging personality) represents an opportunity.

This is a "thought habit" I have cultivated over many years, through a variety of challenges that I have experienced as I have sought to live my best life - that is, to achieve my full potential - in the minefield of intersecting and conflicting interests that is a feature of Barbadian society. It is in Barbados that I became grounded or "seasoned" in the intricacies of local liberties and limitations; the workings of independence and interdependence - and everything in between

I have therefore not come to England or Norwich as a "novice", but have brought a considerable understanding of human nature and relationships with me. This understanding informs my interaction with people of all walks of life: people of all classes, colours, creeds and nationalities.

Above all else, therefore, Norwich Nous aims to be a celebration of Noriwch's distinctive, increasingly metropolitan make-up - unique not only in all of Norfolk, but in all of England, arguably. A tributary springing from the essential Intelek International vision, at its core Norwich Nous is a celebration of humanity in all its uniqueness and universality.

My goal is that this can be a space where all of Norwich can meet. A space where all who make up this wonderful community can find answers, ask questions...tell their stories. A key focus of this initiative - and a particularly practical one in the current climate of economic difficulty - is to create an opportunity for the forging of connections or linkages by which persons feeling marginalized, silenced, "shy" or otherwise "shut out" of Norwich may experience the sense of inclusion and participation that one can only feel through active engagement with one's community.

My stratgy - the Intelek International strategy, fundamentally - is to emphasive the value of what each of us knows: the value of each resident of Norwich's Intelektual property.

And lest there be any confusion, let me hasten to add that while I am keen to encourage accuracy of representation, I am not keen on exhibiting "intellectual feats". The "nous" I want to showcase here most, is the knowledge, views, opinions, feelings, experiences, likes and dislikes, memories, hopes, fears, doubts, certainties, sounds, sights, smells and tastes...the tangible and intangible reality that is life in this great city.

Finally, let me say that while I have set out some areas of focus in the navigation bar at the top of this page, many of these links are totally undeveloped, or else links to existing Intelek initiatives which I am proposing could be developed with a unique local focus or as local "Norwichized" extensions.