from Issue 77, Advent 2024
On 10th September 2024, Edwin Kalerwa passed away in hospital, after suffering from cancer. Edwin lived at Giuseppe Conlon House from 2016 to 2018. He was also a member of the congregation at St Martin in the Fields in London, as well as Watford Chess Club, and he volunteered for many years with the charity Groundswell. Recently he studied IT and was designing a website where he hoped to platform discussions about politics and activism.
I first met Edwin when he came to Giuseppe Conlon House in 2016 during a time when he was homeless and fighting for his right to stay in the UK. He was only supposed to stay for a few weeks, so we gave him a spare bed behind the bookshelves. Being homeless had damaged his health in many ways. He often seemed anxious, worried that people were stealing his things or conspiring against him. He had brought all his belongings with him including furniture. We spent months putting him under pressure to sort out his stuff, his case, his life, and reminding his caseworkers that his stay with us was only supposed to be temporary.
From the beginning, I treated Edwin as a problem that I needed to solve. Edwin told me that we did our best, that we worked very hard in a difficult environment. He blamed the Home Office and the conservative government for his situation. But he was also honest about the hurt and disappointment he experienced while living with us. I am sharing this because I want to be honest about the small part of his life that he spent living with us, even if some of it is painful.
I reached out to him a year ago and we met up a few times. Only a few months ago in the summer, we met up in London and had lunch at a Kenyan restaurant. He told me how he wished we had let him stay with us as long as he needed, long enough to sort out his papers.
He talked about how difficult it is when everyone treats you as a number, when it feels like nobody really cares and there’s nobody you can trust. He described how difficult it is to think about anything, to make plans or act when you are so stressed. He also talked about the retreats we used to organise and how sometimes it felt like we were a family.
His honesty and generosity deeply moved me. It has inspired me and given me strength to engage
compassionately with people whose actions have hurt me or other people. Edwin understood the complexity of people, our emotions and mental health, our relationships, conflicts and the power we exercise.
Edwin was a great chess player. He offered to teach me once, but I felt too patronised to take him up on it. We were planning a trip to Snowdonia. He wanted to challenge himself and climb a mountain, but I had some doubts. He was also passionate about politics. We spent hours on a sunny day, sitting in Red Lion Square, talking about colonialism, gender, education, trade unions… He wrote an article for this newsletter about climate change, and another very candid article about his experience of homelessness. I am so grateful that we were in touch again and that I was able to get to know him more as a whole person, not just as a guest in a Catholic Worker house. Thank you, Edwin, for all you have shared and given of yourself.