I watched Wicked recently and I wasn’t expecting it to echo the conversations we have inside Inspire Club. But there is a moment in the film that stayed with me long after the credits rolled.
It is the “No Place Like Home” scene where Elphaba tries to convince the animals to stay and fight for the land that has always been theirs. She can see what is coming. She knows that once you are pushed out of your home, once fear takes hold, once you begin to shrink from your own space, reclaiming it becomes the work of generations.
And I thought: this is us. This is now.
In Inspire Club this week we spoke openly and proudly about standing our ground. About refusing to let rising hostility make us feel like visitors in our own country. About never apologising for existing, contributing, building and belonging.
Because the truths we hold are are:
The UK belongs to all of us who live here, contribute here, raise our children here and pour ourselves into this place every day.
We belong even if we look different.
We belong even if our names or stories sit outside someone else’s expectation.
We belong because we are here and because we have every right to call this place home.
Wicked is not just a story about magic and music. It is a story about what happens when people are told they do not fit. About how quickly a society can turn when fear is stirred. About how vital it is to stand firm, speak up and refuse to be driven out of spaces we have built, shaped and rooted ourselves in.
Elphaba’s message is one we need right now:
Home is not something you wait to be given.
Home is something you claim with confidence and without apology.
And in our Inspire Club session that fire was unmistakable. Women leaning in. Women choosing courage. Women deciding:
We do not shrink.
We do not hide.
We do not get pushed out of our own home.
Not now. Not ever.
There is no place like home. And this one is ours too.