I have been preparing for a talk I am giving tomorrow. I made this collage of some of my Oxtopian castaways who appear in the three castaway books. Some are famous and some not so well known but all are amazing people. How would you react if you passed them on the street? We may make assumptions purely on physical attributes, male ,female , young, old , brown-skinned, black-skinned, yellow-skinned white-skinned, short ,tall , blond haired, red haired etc What concerns me is when people go further and stereotype people from their physical appearance. Each of us is unique and has a unique story to tell. I have been privileged to hear 120 inspirational stories from Oxford castaways. Can you recognise some of them? The castaways in this picture were born in 4 continents . Peggy Seeger was born in the USA , Weimin He in China , Marios Papadopoulus in Cyprus and Taj Hargey in South Africa but they all now live or work in Oxford . Taj Hargey is not famous but he is the only Imam in Europe who will marry a Muslim woman to a non Muslim. There are plenty who will marry a Muslim man to non-Muslim woman but not the other way around!
