PROFILE
a doctor how the stressful atmosphere of a hospital can affect health-care professionals, patients and their families. I arranged the first livemusic day in October 2002 at Guys Hospital and then another at St Thomas’. They were an incredible success. In 2003, I established the charity Performing Cures to continue this work (www.performingcures.org). The same year, I was invited by the Prime Minister of the Bahamas to take up the post of consultant to a commission established to transform urban areas of the country. Seventeen years after coming up to Oxford, I returned to the country of my birth, as both a Bahamian and British citizen, a medical doctor, a professional jazz singer and founder of a charity. My job as a consultant in the Office of the Prime Minister is essentially the human side of urban renewal and human development. The Bahamian Urban Renewal initiative is an extremely innovative project. It began two years ago as a small government project in one of the oldest and most socially deprived areas of Nassau. Since then the initiative has expanded to over 14 urban areas on three different islands. My focus has been on empowering people through education. I and my team do this through what I’ve called ‘Re-Search’ – looking again at what we are manifesting in our daily lives, our physical environment and in nature. We
Desiree at work (image provided by Desiree Cox)
conduct small pilot studies, surveys and dig up secondary literature and publish papers on socio-demographic profiles, spiritual transformation, holistic education for children in urban communities and community development in the Haitian immigrant populations. My approach to leadership is to lead by example. Transformation for me is about being true to yourself, having the courage to explore the boundaries of the ‘Self’, and going wherever the journey takes you. For the past two and a half years, I’ve been exploring the boundaries of who I am as an artist. In June 2005, I released my first single, ‘Forbidden Love’. The single did very well. Immediately after completing the single, I began working on an album. The album, recorded in New York, on my own record label, Soul Imagination, is now complete. Excerpts from the album can be heard on-line at: www.soulimagination.org. A number of international gigs are planned for the Bahamas, UK, Europe and the US in the months leading up to the
release of the album in November 2006. The second project I’m working on is a collection of shortstories. When I first moved to Nassau in 2004, I began a weekly short-story column ‘People Transform’ in the Nassau Guardian. They were all new stories, based on personal experiences, and they proved to be very popular. The column ran for a year and the stories have been brought together as a collection, which should be finished by December 2006. I’ve also been working on a collection of my paintings for November 2006. The charitable organisation I set up in the UK, Performing Cures, has been evolving as an international organisation. The purpose of Performing Cures is to bring a spirit of joy and possibility to communities through the performance of live music and dramatic performances in public spaces of hospitals, health-care centres and half-way houses. Part of the proceeds from the sales of my album and art pieces will be donated to the Foundation. My time at Pembroke was a true and full exploration of love and life. It’s a time I shall never forget.
Pembrokian August 2006 www.pmb.ox.ac.uk
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