Help Me Reclaim My Story: A Writer's Journey To St. Lucia

Azania Shange Start Date: Apr 7, 2025 - End Date: Jan 6, 2026
  • Saint Lucia

My Travel Story

by: Azania Shange Start Date: Apr 7, 2025 - End Date: Jan 6, 2026
Hi, I’m Azania, a writer on a mission to reconnect with the part of my story that feels like a whisper—present but just out of reach.

I’m raising funds to support a 6-month stay in St. Lucia, the island of my father and grandmother, and a place that holds roots I’ve barely begun to explore. I’ve only been there twice—once when I was 9 years old, visiting with my grandmother, and again, years later, to lay her to rest. Outside of those two brief visits, this land and this legacy are unfamiliar to me. Yet I feel them tugging at me, asking to be known.

Since losing both my father and grandmother, I’ve felt a deep and growing need to connect to this place that shaped them—and, by extension, me. As a writer, my work is deeply personal. It draws from memory, lineage, and lived experience. But how can I write the full story if a whole chapter of it is missing?

This trip isn’t just a homecoming—it’s a journey of restoration and discovery. I want to walk the roads they walked, hear the music they heard, breathe the same air, and speak with the people who carry pieces of the past I never got to learn. My goal is to immerse myself in the language, culture, history, and rhythm of St. Lucia and let it shape my storytelling.

How Your Support Will Help:

Funds raised will cover:
• Travel & relocation costs
• Housing for 6 months
• Daily living expenses (food, transportation, etc.)
• Writing and documentation supplies
• Archival and cultural research
• Community connection and storytelling workshops

This is more than a trip. It’s a spiritual and creative reckoning. It’s a way for me to honor my family, recover lost pieces of myself, and share what I learn with others—through poetry, storytelling, script writing and more.

If you believe in the power of story, in reclaiming heritage, in healing through art—please consider supporting this journey.

Thank you for reading, for sharing, and for helping me bring this story home.

With gratitude,
Azania Shangé
  • Saint Lucia