Continental Breakfast
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Speaker: Karen Rooms, Canon Missioner at Leicester Cathedral
Subject: Social Justice
Karen has a trace of a Glaswegian accent from the city of her childhood, but moved to Nottingham in 1974. Baptised as a teenager, it was at university in Bristol where her faith really grew. She met Nigel, who soon became an ordinand, while she was working for Proctor & Gamble, and finally became an Anglican by getting confirmed in the year he was priested.
Together with their two boys they lived and worked as mission partners in Leicester’s link diocese, the Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro, from 1994-2001, where Karen established The Coffee Shop business in Moshi. On return to the UK she was ordained in 2006 serving a curacy in multi-cultural Hyson Green and working with asylum seekers and refugees.
During this time she became a founding trustee for a housing charity. Drawn into the work of Citizens UK to end child detention for immigration purposes, she subsequently co-founded Nottingham Citizens, a broad-based alliance working across different faith groups, education and labour for the common good in the city, and found a place where faith and politics meet.
After ten years of inner-city ministry and stint as Area Dean in Nottingham she moved to Leicester where she is the Canon Missioner at Leicester Cathedral, Transition Priest of Holy Spirit Parish, and Women’s Ministry Enabler for the diocese. She continues working with asylum seekers and refugees pursuing justice through broad based community organising with Leicester Citizens and as a Trustee of Citizens UK.