An Evening in Liverpool: NPUK at Kemola Lounge

During the RCPsych Congress, Nigerian psychiatrists and friends gathered for a Meet and Greet that felt less like an event and more like a homecoming.

It began, as the best evenings often do, without ceremony.

There are gatherings that conduct business, and gatherings that simply remind people they belong to something. This was the latter.

On the evening of 17 June 2026, as the day dawned at the RCPsych Congress in Liverpool, members and friends came together at Kemola Lounge, widely regarded as the city's finest West African restaurant. They came from across the United Kingdom, some who had known each other for years, others meeting for the first time.

The room did what good rooms do. Old friendships were renewed. New ones began. Conversations ran easily between the professional and the personal, as they tend to among people who need no translation.

There was Amala & Abula, Asun, Jollof Rice at amongst other delicious Nigerian dishes.

Nigerian music carried under the conversation. Sport played on the screens. The particular ease of an evening where heritage is not explained but simply shared.

The food and the music were the occasion. The company was the point.

Beneath the festivity sat something quieter and more important. Belonging, fellowship, our heritage and the steadying presence of people are not incidental to professional life. They sustain it.

As NPUK grows, evenings such as this one are a reminder that the organisation is about more than representation. It is about community, culture, friendship, and the mutual support that allows members to thrive, personally as much as professionally.

Our sincere gratitude to everyone who came, and who made the evening what it was.

Thank you. We look forward to the next.

Share your stories with us at info@npuk.org.uk