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MAY 2021 • ISSUE NO. 1918

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‘RACISM IS ABOUT POWER’ After arriving in Britain with her family post-Windrush, Cordella Bart-Stewart has witnessed first-hand the disparities and injustices against the black community that continue to be prevalent today.

See page 3

2021

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Bob Marley: Remembering a legend 40 years on See pages 26-27

What does Chauvin’s conviction mean for us?

See page 4

Africa Day: Special feature See pages 24-25

RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD CUP 2021 IS ON YOUR DOORSTEP

23 OCTOBER - 27 NOVEMBER 2021

Inside

ROUNDUP

THIS MONTH

NEWSPAPER

Spotlight

News, views, stories & videos

THE 10 MOST POPULAR STORIES ON VOICE-ONLINE.CO.UK

Scammers are rife – so make sure you don't become a victim p10

1. Nicole Thea's partner speaks out and says medical mistake destroyed his family Jeffrey Frimpong has alluded to the cause of her death

The vaccination programme is making huge strides p14

2. Dutchavelli addresses allegations that he messaged a 14-year-old on Instagram The rapper took to IGTV to address the rumours

3. Notting Hill Carnival 2021 might still be happening Organisers have said this year's Notting Hill Carnival has not been ruled out

4. Jamaican track and field chief provides ominous warning to rivals

Some of the most respected figures in Jamaican athletics have lent their weight of support to the Global Conversation for the Future of Athletics

5. Global Boga gives first interview after death of wife Nicole Thea and baby son

The Africa Centre hopes to become bigger and better in its new Southwark home p24

The dancer-turned-Afrobeats artist described how his life has changed

6. Missing police appeal to help find 15-year-old Tariq Noor

Police appealed to the public to help find a missing teenage boy who has gone missing

7. Senegal are Africa’s leading football nation in the latest Fifa rankings

'My son has sickle cell disease – and I'm now making it easier for other families' p32

Senegal have been rated as Africa’s top rated side after April’s FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking was revealed. Nicknamed the Lions of Teranga, the African nation sit 22nd position

8. Black Cultural Archives leaves Government's Windrush Working Group after unsubstantiated race report The BCA has announced its resignation from its position on the Home Office’s Cross Government Windrush Working Group

9. Remembering the Brixton uprisings 40 years on

Rugby League World Cup 2021 chief hoping for the green light p46

With tensions rising and innocent black people being targeted by police, the so-called Battle of Brixton was a long time coming, says Dotun Adebayo

10. Why Boris Johnson needs to reject the Sewell report Patrick Vernon shares an opinion piece

This issue is 48 pages EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Paulette Simpson E. paulette.simpson@thevoice mediagroup.co.uk CORPORATE AFFAIRS & COMMUNICATIONS Paula Dyke E. paula@thevoicemedia group.co.uk

Northpole Crush

It all began when Dan, Daryl and Craig, three childhood friends from north London, came together, to revolutionise the drinking experience for customers worldwide. Tired of tasting the heavily artificial slush puppies of old, they went to work in creating natural Caribbean and African fruit based alcoholic and non-alcoholic crushies.

These new flavours created much excitement and appreciation when they were shared at a BBQ tasting session hosted at Daryl’s house. This subsequently gave birth to, not only a supreme fleet of machines, but a completely unique drinking experience – Northpole Crush (NPC), a revolutionary drinks company providing unique services and personalised cocktails and mocktails in frozen and liquid form.

Dan, Daryl and Craig are all co-founders and very influential in every area of the business, they make a great team!

Daryl is NPC's master chef and main cocktail connoisseur. Dan and Craig can mix with the best of them, but Daryl is responsible for signing off flavours and bringing them to life.

Dan is an account executive by trade and has been governing big tech sale deals for over 10 years and so he is the muscle in the sales and marketing area.

Craig is Head of Operations, overseeing the full supply chain, constantly servicing the machines and drives great initiatives to push Northpole Crush forward.

Northpole Crush is a lifestyle brand catering for all ages but attracts a specific stronghold of men and women aged between 21-45. It provides high end bespoke products and services which are affordable to the everyday person.

When COVID-19 hit, the NPC team created unique personalised cans of cocktails and mocktails that would be delivered directly to the consumers door totally embodying the ever-increasing trends of convenience, relaxation, and personalisation.

The NPC team have excited the likes of The Errol McKellar Foundation, Republic London and Nip+Fab. Check them out at www.northpolecrush.com or call them on 0747 366 8899.

Got a story? email us at yourviews@thevoicemediagroup.co.uk

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MAY 2021 THE VOICE | 3

Special feature

Race report

‘Race is not about class – racism is about power’ After arriving in Britain with her family post-Windrush, Cordella Bart-Stewart has witnessed first-hand the disparities and injustices against the black community that continue to be prevalent today – so why won’t the Government take action?

T

HE EUROPEAN Union Agency for fundamental rights in its EU Minorities and Discrimination Survey published on November 11, 2019 noted that People of African descent have been an integral part of the social fabric of European Union (EU) countries for generations, but across the EU – which then included the UK – people of African descent face widespread and entrenched prejudice and exclusion.

Wendy Williams, in the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, identified in the Home Office an institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race and the history of the Windrush Generation. These aspects are included in the definition of institutional racism considered in the MacPherson inquiry.

This country has difficulty reconciling its history of slavery and colonialism with what it considers its exceptionalism.

It is therefore saddening but not a surprise that a Commission on race and ethnic disparities that has been shown a vast quantity of evidence confirming continued racial injustice, has sought to ignore it as some parts of the world might treat minorities worse. This is shameful and pitiful.

I have read countless official reports over the years and have yet to see a report which uses so much name calling and denigrating of people as this one.

Although the Commissioners stated they felt able to make “with confidence sometimes controversial arguments” they rushed out a statement defending the report.

Organisations and individuals have complained their work was misrepresented or credited when not consulted at all.

All this because of a determination to ignore evidence and exclude voices that do not buy in to a narrative that allows Government to do nothing about the deeply imbedded

This country has difficulty reconciling its history of slavery structural and systemic factors that are the foundations of racial disparity.

The devil is in the data The report points out that arguments about discrimination almost always start with data.

What is crucial is the data chosen and how it is framed and presented. That is where the cherry picking in the report is evident.

It is true that “differences – or ‘disparities’ – are not always sinister and do not always arise from discrimination”. However, where differences point to something sinister and systematic it should be called out.

Instead, they looked for alternative explanations. Anything but skin colour. Where stuck they have Commissioned research, which it has not published, and recommended yet more data collection and mini Commissions.

A surprising omission is the historical and institutional racism at the heart of the Windrush Scandal. Yet randomly they refer to addressing online abuse and the platforms used to perpetuate hate.

This is already Government policy. They don’t mention bigotry and racist views in mainstream newspapers and their online presence.

The Government has no interest in tackling that one. It already knew who the report was for.

Institutional or systemic racism does not need to be deliberate or targeted. Had the Commission not insisted on avoiding that truth they saw

evidence and ideas could be embraced as a way forward to real and lasting improvement.

Instead, they have entrenched a confected culture war and caused further loss of confidence and division.

No sensible targets and backup Policyexchange.org.uk, whose work is quoted said in a recent report looking at ethnic minority progression, said: “Ensuring greater ethnic diversity at the top is something that is within reach. Some of it is happening anyway, in other places it requires a nudge and in some corners a shove.

“It requires the investment of moderate amounts of political capital, access to data, measures that put things on a more transparent footing, some sensible targets, and backup to ensure that progress is not lost in the future.”

That extract is not in the Commission’s report. Instead, it said: “This Commission finds that the big challenge of our age is not overt racial prejudice, it is building on and advancing the progress won by the struggles of the past 50 years.

“This requires us to take a broader, dispassionate look at what has been holding some people back. We therefore cannot accept the accusatory tone of much of the current rhetoric on race, and the pessimism about what has been and what more can be achieved”.

A Commission on race disparity should not be worrying about tone and rhetoric. It should acknowledge the numerous reports and reviews that highlight discrimination and disproportionate outcomes particularly for African and African Caribbean people in the UK. Refusal to accept unpalatable rhetoric means they have not properly engaged with recommendations in numerous pre-existing reports and set out a road map for full implementation.

MUCH TO LEARN: Cordella BartStewart and her younger brother shortly after arriving in Britain

Missed opportunities It is difficult to have confidence in a report using snippets of reviews, material from

ommendations. This is a missed opportunity as there are some useful discussions such as education where the experience for

What is crucial is the data chosen and how it is framed and presented a Conservative party think tanks random sources such as a blog post and an online news site read by a small number of people as evidence to make rec-

all children could be improved.

Their data clearly shows that African and Caribbean children start school with no significant disparity with white peers in

meeting the expected standard in development, but disparity widens by the time they leave primary school and continues to widen throughout their educational life.

Over the last 10 years the attainment gap for children on free school meals has been increasing when it decreased previously.

Early years show a downward trend in attainment that began in 2010.

Continued on page 16

4 | THE VOICE

MAY 2021

News feature

WHAT DOES CHAUVIN’S CONVICTION MEAN? T

We all knew that George Floyd’s killer Derek Chauvin was guilty of murder. But does the criminal conviction mean that justice is done? By Terence Channer

HIS IS the question.

Many of us have been seeking to interpret or find real and enduring meaning in this very rare and monumental murder conviction.

Is it justice? Is it the start of justice? Is it the start of police accountability? Is it potential police accountability?

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that the Black Lives Matter movement started in response to the death of George Floyd.

This black civil rights movement actually has its beginnings in the aftermath of the acquittal of George Zimmerman of the shooting murder of Trayvon Martin in 2013. Yes, eight years ago.

49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first “took the knee” during the national anthem on September 1, 2016 at a preseason game, as a protest against racial injustice in the US. A hugely symbolic act that was to overshadow his status as an NFL player and catapult him onto the world sphere as an iconic Afro haired human rights activist.

He effectively sacrificed his NFL career in doing so.

Taking the knee thereafter became the symbol of protest against anti-black racism, not just in the US, but other parts of the globe including the UK. It was modified to include a raised fist; the raised fist that shook the world 48 years prior, again during the national anthem at the Mexico Olympics by two black American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos. No doubt, Kaepernick was influenced by Smith and Carlos.

Millions have since protested racial injustice by doing an SCK (Smith Carlos Kaepernick).

We cannot underestimate the

I’m afraid there are bound to be future fatal encounters with the US police power of sporting protest when black sporting prowess is replaced by black sporting protest.

The thought of black people refusing to sing, dance and play and turning to protest, is for some a very disconcerting, frightening, or offensive prospect (remember the BGT Diversity furore?).

Since Kaepernick took the knee, there have been numerous protests against police brutality.

Millions have taken the knee including thousands of professional athletes.

George Floyd was a talented athlete, having won an athletic scholarship to play American football at South Florida Community College.

On May 25, 2020 at the corner of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, took a knee. He took a knee to the neck of George Floyd, a handcuffed black detainee and kept it there for over nine minutes.

The average length of the US na-

tional anthem is one minute 40 seconds i.e. 100 seconds (ask Smith Carlos and Kaepernick).

Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd for almost 600 seconds, to a chorus of desperate pleas from horrified onlookers, to stop what they saw as a modern day lynching.

Had it not been for mobile phone footage captured by teenager Darnella Frazier and uploaded online, Mr Chauvin would now be donning his uniform and pinning his badge to report for duty.

A badge that has adorned the chests of Minneapolis police officers since 1867.

BRUTALITY

Chauvin was kneeling in defiance of the civil rights (BLM) protests that had preceded.

Where those protests against police brutality had symbolised a stand against the pain and oppression that black folk had been enduring for centuries, his cool and calmly brutal kneeling on Floyd’s neck, in stark contrast, was to continue the legacy of pain, oppression and death.

The message was clear, as he squeezed the last remnants of the life force out of George Floyd: “You can kneel in protest as much as you want, but we can bring you black people to heel however, whenever and wherever we choose.”

Chauvin was the epitome of a strong historic message i.e. that police officers in his position could act with impunity.

Furthermore, there was a wider white supremacist message, one of subjugation at all strata of society, not just lawenforcement.

The conviction of

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RELIEF: Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd, wipes tears from his eyes as he speaks during a news conference after former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted Chauvin has the potential to have a significant positive impact upon law enforcement vis-a-vis the policing of black people, moving forward - that police officers should no longer consider themselves above the law when policing black com-

custody in the history of British policing. This is an indictment upon policing in this country. The George Floyd murder conviction has to provide us in the UK with some hope, that at some stage in the near future, the UK will see the start of jus-

measures to be implemented in the UK to prevent such killings.

A start would be to immediately implement the 110 urgent recommendations in Dame Elish Angiolini’s 2017 independent review of deaths in police custody.

However, this report, commissioned by Theresa May in 2015, has been kicked into the long grass and what we currently have is the Sewell report.

Black people are three times more likely to die in police custody than white people DISGRACEFUL munities or any peoples. Sadly, I am afraid there are bound to be future fatal encounters with the US police.

Therefore, this conviction will not bring a swift end to police brutality nor should it be expected to. However, I am hoping that it will be the start of a very clear message to those policing black communities, that black people deserve the same respect and treatment as white people. There is no quick fix to this, but we need to see a start – a domino effect, a string of police convictions relating to the use of criminal force (lethal or non-lethal), to force a change in attitudes to policing.

Black people are three times more likely to die in police custody in the UK than white people. However, not a single police officer has been successfully prosecuted for killing a black, white or any person in

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tice – without the needless loss of another black life.

For those that are bound to argue that the conviction of Chauvin in the US has no bearing on UK policing as it was “over there”, my response is that racism does not respect geographical borders and it never will. Racism is confined to the attitudes and minds of people and is free from the constraints of regional, national or international boundaries, or border agencies.

In October 2020, a jury at the inquest into the death of Kevin Clarke, a black 35-yearold man with mental health issues, concluded that the police use of restraint techniques was inappropriate and contributed to his death, yet there have been no criminal prosecutions let alone criminal convictions.

We should not have to wait for another Clarke-style death for

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The Sewell report is an utterly disgraceful denial of the existence of institutional racism.

To confine the meaning of the Chauvin conviction to policing alone would be short sighted.

The message moving forward is that the murder conviction is an opportunity to start the dismantling of systemic and institutional racism in general in the US and other Western countries, including the UK, where policing and other institutions remain institutionally racist (as confirmed by widely available statistics) despite the perverse findings of the discredited Sewell report.

Terence Channer is a consultant solicitor at Scott-Moncrieff & Associates LLP which specialises in police misconduct, injury and healthcare law. He is a passionate antiracism advocate and dedicates much of his time in this area.

www.voice-online.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2021

THE VOICE| 5

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Helping Black and Minority Owned Small Businesses Get Back2Business Financial Institutions

Corporates

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6 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

News

‘I want this memorial to bring hope after my family’s journey’ The shooting of Cherry Groce

by Met officers in 1985 sparked riots across Brixton. Now, 10 years after her death, her son says she can finally be rested.

By Shanae Dennis

T

RAGICALLY SHOT in front of her children by the Metropolitan Police in 1985, Cherry Groce sustained injuries that left her paralysed and in pain until she died in 2011.

A memorial, designed by world-renowned architect Sir David Adjaye OBE, was unveiled on April 25 in Windrush Square, Brixton in her honour.

RESTED

Speaking to The Voice, chair of the Cherry Groce Foundation and son of Ms Groce, Mr Lee Lawrence, said: “I feel that now she [Cherry Groce] can be rested. We can release her, she can be free because we’ve done everything we can in our power to honour her and allow her legacy to live on.”

Mr Lawrence, the awardwinning author of his biography, The Louder I Will Sing, has been fighting for justice since the day his mother passed away.

There was no responsibility for what happened – it’s like my mum got shot in the line of duty “She was shot in ‘85 and two years later there was a trial. The result of that trial was that the police were not guilty.

“There was no responsibility or accountability for what had happened – it was like my mum got shot in the line of duty,” he explained.

Ms Groce was shot at her home in Brixton, an incident that changed her children’s lives.

“When the incident happened

A TOUCHING TRIBUTE: The memorial in honour of Cherry Groce in Windrush Square, Brixton, acts as a poignant reminder of the hardships Ms Groce’s family has endured; inset below, Ms Groce’s son and Cherry Groce Foundation chair, Lee Lawrence and my mother was alive, we went into survival mode… we suppressed our feelings around what happened.

“So when she passed, all of that came up to the surface – there was just this overwhelming feeling of sadness and de-

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layed trauma.” Following on from her passing from kidney failure, aged 63, her children fought for justice.

The day after her funeral, Mr Lawrence visited Ms Groce’s grave and made a commitment to himself and his mother.

“I said, ‘My mum can’t go out like this… I’m gonna throw everything into evening up the score a little bit, and defend my mother in a way that I couldn’t defend her the day she was shot’,” Mr Lawrence shared with The Voice.

An inquest was opened after Ms Groce’s passing due to doctors determining a causal link between the shooting and her death.

Eventually, a public apology was issued

by The Met and after a further battle of two years in High Court, they also took accountability for the impact that the incident had on Ms Groce’s children.

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Mr Lawrence says that they eventually received “restorative justice”. “I would say it’s a variation of justice – it’s not the kind of justice that should have

and wants us to get to a point where, “hopefully, these things don’t happen again, but if they do happen, the way that they’re dealt with is more fair”.

Brixton is synonymous with black culture. It’s changing so much – it can be very easy for our stories to be etched out taken place,” Mr Lawrence told The Voice.

Mr Lawrence wants the memorial to bring hope from his family’s journey and struggle serving as a reminder of the struggle for equality and racial justice for black people.

For her son, the memorial is the end of one chapter but another begins in the continued fight for equality.

Reflecting on the recent news of the conviction of George Floyd’s murderer, Mr Lawrence felt relieved and shocked

voicenews

The memorial features a planted roof that shelters public benches.

“Brixton is synonymous with black culture – it was a place we called home, it’s where the ’81 and ’85 risings happened,” Mr Lawrence explained.

“It’s important that we have something that actually acknowledges what we’ve gone through and acknowledges our struggle.

“Brixton is changing so much, it can be very easy for our stories to be etched out.”

www.voice-online.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2021

THE VOICE| 7

8 | THE VOICE

MAY 2021

News feature

Can Sir Keir Starmer pull a rabbit out of the bag?

TOUGH TIMES: In the wake of uncertainty over the COVID crisis, Sir Keir Starmer faces an uphill battle as the public clings to stability

Labour is in decline in the polls and Sir Keir’s personal ratings are also falling. As we move towards May 6 elections and beyond, what are the party leader’s challenges? By Dr Floyd Millen

O

N MAY 6 across England, Wales and Scotland, we have mayoral elections, Welsh Assembly/government elections, Scottish Parliament elections, along with elections for 39 Police and Crime Commissioners in England, a parliamentary bi-election in Hartlepool and up to 6,000 councillors in England.

These elections will be seen as a litmus test on Sir Keir Starmer. Whilst the predictions for May are gloomy for Mr Starmer, he could still yet navigate a path to 10 Downing Street.

Shades of Grey - Keir the reluctant populist With the decimation of the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn, pictured below right, at the 2019 general election, the ‘stop the rise of the left’ candidate, Sir Keir, secured victory with a commitment to pull the Labour Party back to the centre ground and win back Red Wall seats and seats taken by the Greens and Lib Dems. As my mentor, the Late Philip Gould of Brookwood told me, the centre ground is where the party needs to be.

The first challenge which faced Sir Keir when he became the leader of the Labour Party was internal. Even during the tenure of the most successful British prime minister of our time, Tony Blair, the party was hell bent on internecine warfare.

Left- and right-wing factionalism exists in every political party, but the Labour party has long battled with its left wing.

Sir Keir’s equivalent Clause 4 moment was the defenestration of Mr Corbyn and others on the left, because, not only was Mr Corbyn the physical embodiment of the Labour Party’s left, but paradoxically, Mr Corbyn secured the largest mandate

The media and the public have forgiven the government for its litany of errors ever won by a party leader and his victory saw 350,000+ new members join its ranks. Having previously worked so closely with him, it could be argued that Sir Keir pushing Mr Corbyn out of the party was him playing the man, not the ball: with the result of entrenching the left/right divide in the party and in the mind of the public.

The right of the party and the media supported Sir Keir in stamping his authority on the party, but just as a pet boa constrictor stretches out alongside its keeper, seemingly adoringly, the constrictor is in reality measuring the keeper for lunch.

Sir Keir needs to be mindful about the pull from both wings of the party because, as night follows day, the adoring constrictor will turn on him when it has gauged the cut of your jib.

The present and the future Sir Keir’s speech on February 18 this year was to reset and frame Labour’s attack on 11 years of Conservative-led government. He convincingly stated that 10 years of austerity and year-on-year cuts had left the NHS and other public services unable to properly function.

His clarion call was that radical reform on the scale of 1945 was needed. He was on to something, as most people would agree

that something is wrong with the management and funding of our public services.

Polls, however, showed that Sir Keir’s message was not positively received. This was more to do with the timing than the message. In a time of crisis people will “hold on to nurse, for fear of worse” and so it was always going to be an uphill struggle for him to break through the wall of COVID fear and uncertainty.

His message was also stilted by the ninja-like moves of the Conservative government as it counter-attacked by political cross-dressing and announcing its fiscal expansion in the budget and they began debating policing, immigration and defence, which took the wind out of his sails.

The vacuum on the left With 127,000+ deaths from COVID-19, there is no doubt that the government has blundered and made many missteps in response to the pandemic. It seems however, that with the successful planning and rollout of the vaccine, the media and the public have forgiven the government for its litany of errors.

Against this backdrop, Mr Starmer has an uphill struggle to differentiate himself. His advisors appear out of touch, inward-looking and do not understand what the electorate wants, let alone how to ameliorate Labour’s internal turf war.

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Ten tips for Sir Keir to boost his chances for Labour...

1. A Blair-Brown ‘big picture’ programme of hope and national renewal 2. Develop a multi-tiered fight strategy 3. Move away from collegiate opposition to a fighting Opposition 4. Change your top table of advisers 5. Raise the prominence and visibility of shadow ministers 6. This is a street fight, not a There is still time for Sir Keir to turn the ship and chart a course for Number 10. Can he stave off the predicted losses that political pundits are signalling on May 6 and beyond?

There is a growing feeling across the membership that Sir Keir may be the man to rekindle their fortunes, but he has not as yet found his voice, his authenticity or his mission. The real Sir Keir is being smothered and an air of competency from his front bench is lacking.

Mr Starmer has two superpowers; firstly, he is the kryptonite to the left; secondly, his forensic approach at the des-

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yodelling contest – being nice is becoming a negative 7. Being forensic only works when your opponent is reading the same script 8. A strategy of participation is not a strategy to win 9. A ‘refreshed’ shadow ministerial team that will illicit confidence 10. Reconnect with Labour grassroots

patch box has been an asset but it is quickly turning into his Achilles heel, because his opponent, Boris Johnson, is like Bruce Lee — he is “shapeless like water”.

Boris is the thing which discombobulates an organised and structured opponent who approaches work with clinical, rather than emotional and tactile intelligence.

There is still time for Sir Keir to turn his fortunes around.

The conjuring trick which Mr Starmer needs to pull off now is to reunite the Labour Party around a common theme and a progressive centrist agenda

voicenews

and to change the narrative that the Labour Party is not fit to hold power.

There is a vacuum on the centre left of British politics. If Sir Keir performs poorly in the upcoming elections, he can still beat a path to Number 10.

Dr Floyd Millen is a political scientist and a former special adviser to the Cabinet Office and the

founder of the first BME-owned public affairs think tank Yes

Minister. Dr Millen was mentored by the former home secretary

Charles Clarke and studied under the Conservative peer, Professor the Lord Norton of Louth.

www.voice-online.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2021

THE VOICE| 9

10

| THE VOICE

MAY 2021

Finance

Make sure you spot a scam

STAY ALERT: Savvy scammers use clever methods to grab your attention (photo: Ketut Subiyanto)

Financial fraud is on the rise, and scammers can use very clever and convincing methods to lure you in to a false sense of security. Here, Simoney Kyriakou offers some tricks and tips to give you the upper hand if you spot something suspicious

A

LWAYS ASSUME any unsolicited text, email, social media message or call that relates to your finances is fraudulent.

Certainly if you’ve been stung once, you should think twice before falling for a scam again, yet the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau found that £373 million was lost by repeat victims of fraud in the financial year 2019-20, with the average repeat victim losing £21,121.

It is important to protect yourself, more so now than ever, because if recent cases I’ve seen are anything to go by, you are unlikely to get your money back if you’ve been coerced by a scammer into bypassing any banking safeguards.

The banks have resurrected ‘caveat emptor’ – buyer beware – and will hold you partly or fully responsible for falling for a scam.

Banks are stating they have given customers fair warning, reminding them they would never ask you to transfer to a new account.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard from an elderly gentleman who was told he was at fault when he fell for an investment fraud.

Divorced pensioners, young adults or key workers – all fraud victims. One man I spoke to had been a customer of a high street bank for 18 years

Do not click any links that come via text or Facebook (see case study 1). Their only recourse is to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service – who is increasingly finding in favour of the banks, stating the banks had barriers in place to prevent people parting with their cash.

So again I urge you: always assume any unsolicited contact that requires you to transfer money to a new account is a scam.

What sort of scams are out there?

APP scams are sophisticated, hooking you in with a fake text or cold-call. Common ones in circulation: l Royal Mail text: Claiming you have a parcel with unpaid postage. l Virgin Media: States someone has set up an account in your name. l HMRC: A cold-call claiming your national insurance number has been frozen. l Microsoft: A cold-caller claiming your computer has been compromised. l Investment scams:

Calling you after you interact with popular savings sites. l Your bank: Claiming someone is committing fraud on your account.

If you get any of these, make a note of the number and report it to Action Fraud and to your bank. Then block them.

Do not click on any links, either on text, email or social media pages. Sometimes callers ask you to call the number on the back of your credit card.

Do not fall for this. They will remain on the phone line and intercept the call. Either switch to a different phone, or get a friend/family member to use their phone to call the official number for your bank.

Warning screens Many banks have adopted ‘intercept’ warnings to help prevent people from making a transfer that might be fraudulent.

If you start a transfer and get a warning screen, end the call and verify it with your bank. Do not be pressured or scared into clicking ‘family and friends’ (see case study 2).

Say something like, ‘I have a caller at the door; I will call back later’. Then end the call, wait a few minutes and call your bank’s fraud team immediately.

A spokesperson for Halifax comments: “Never be rushed into transferring money and, if

Case study 1: Mr R-M and the broadband scam MR R-M has been with a high street bank for 18 years and has rarely made big transfers.

But on February 13 he had a text from Virgin, stating his billing details needed to be updated. He followed the link but quickly realised it was a scam, alerted his bank immediately, and ordered a new card. End of story?

Sadly no. On February 19, a scammer called him from a cloned bank number, claiming someone had attempted to set up a Virgin mobile account under his name.

The scammer set up a ‘safe account’ for him and he transferred £9,900 into the account.

When he called his bank on February 20, the genuine customer service operator said there had been no such conversation – Mr R-M had been cleaned out.

The bank said it admitted fraud warnings were not strong enough, but said Mr R-M should have been more careful. As a result, his bank only refunded him 50 per cent of his money. He is leaving the bank.

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you’re being told you need to act now, this should be a big red flag that it’s a scam.”

She urges customers to “avoid being caught in the moment”, adding: “A genuine company won’t mind if you hang up and call back later using a trusted number.”

How do you deal with a scammer?

Without having Liam Neesonlike skills that enable you to hunt down the scammers (many of whom do not even operate from the UK), you will need some tools in your armoury.

Here are my rules of engagement: 1) Stop being polite. The nicesounding man on the phone is trained to gain your confidence. Reply: “I’m aware of this scam, and I am reporting

this to Action Fraud. Goodbye.”

Then put, the, phone, down.

2) Make a note of the number, block it, and report it to your bank and to Action Fraud: https://www.actionfraud.police. uk/news 3) You may have been told to call the number on the back of your bank card. Do not immediately phone the number: the scammer may have cloned it, or may still be sitting on the line.

4) Call their bluff. State firmly: “Thank you for your call. I am going to my bank this morning/ afternoon/first thing tomorrow and will speak with them then.”

If you get any response other than: “That’s great to know.

Here is the reference number to give to the person at the desk,” then they are a scammer.

5) Never fall for pressure tac-

tics. Anyone telling you that you have to act now is doing it in their interest, not yours.

6) Keep up-to-date with fraud alerts on Action Fraud and the Financial Conduct Authority website: https://www.fca.org. uk/consumers/report-scam-us 7) Do not click on any links that come through via a text or Facebook message. It’s probably phishing malware.

8) When you get a cold-call or a suspicious text, flag it on forums and alert your friends and family to it. Expose the scam and deprive the thieves of oxygen.

9) Do not log onto your computer if asked to do so. Try saying: “I don’t have a computer; I don’t even have a smartphone.”

That usually foxes scammers.

10) Always assume any unsolicited financial communication is a scam.

Case study 2: Ms E and a high street bank MS E has been with her bank for five years but is leaving to go to another high street bank after it refused to refund nearly £10,000 that she transferred into a fake account.

She was hooked by an automated call pretending to be from HMRC saying her National Insurance number had been cloned.

She was given a reference number and put through to a ‘senior official’. He “put her under pressure” with threats of going to court.

He set up an account for her and she trans-

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ferred into it. Within minutes, the scammer sent her a letter which was so badly written she realised it wasn’t legitimate and called her bank at once. She was on hold for two hours so she ran “in tears” to the bank, where she reported the fraud.

After investigating, the high street bank said the fraud warnings when she tried to make the transfer were clear enough and it was her responsibility to verify the caller. As she did not, it would not refund the £9,970.

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www.voice-online.co.uk

Lambeth Children’s Homes Redress Scheme Deadline: Applications for compensation open until 1 January 2022 Lambeth Council has set up a Redress Scheme for people who, as children, were abused or feared abuse at a Lambeth Children’s Home and/or Shirley Oaks Primary School.

There are two types of compensation payment available: n Harm’s Way Payment n Individual Redress Payment To find out more about the Scheme, eligibility and to make a claim, visit lambeth.gov.uk/redress or email redress@lambeth.gov.uk

Below is a list of children’s homes that were run by Lambeth or its predecessor authority (and which subsequently transferred to Lambeth), either within or outside of their area, that provided accommodation for children in care.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

Almond House Hostel Angell Road Calais Street Chestnut Road / Robson Road Chevington House Cumberlow Lodge Garrads Road Gresham Place Highland Road Ingleton House Ivy House / Warham Road

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

Knowle Close Lancester Avenue Lancaster Road Leigham Court Road Lorn Road Monkton Street Mount Villas Nottingham Road Rathmell Drive Rectory Grove / Elaine Claire House Samuel House

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

Shirley Oaks South Vale Southwood Southwood Discharge Hostel St Saviours Stephany House Stockwell Park The Elms Thornwick Nursery Tivoli Road Woodvale

101859 (1.21)

THE WEEKLY GLEANER

FEBRUARY 4-10, 2021 • 5

12 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

Dotun Adebayo

Rate him or hate him - you can’t ignore him!

Join the debate online voice-online.co.uk/opinion

WHY FEED US LIES?

Forget the recent Government report... Britain is unsafe for young black men — fact

T

H E REPORT by the Government’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities that Dr Tony Sewell (once of this parish) chaired is great news for us middle class black people.

We have done well, it has to be said, and Dr Sewell says it over and over again. It is our success that is used continually in this report as evidence that our collective experience in this country is not all about ‘a white man’s heaven, a black man’s hell’.

Dr Sewell would argue that’s the old school talking and (nuff already) we need to ‘leggo’ ancient history and come correct, move with the here and now.

Not so much ‘the times they are a-changing’ but as Biggie (the Bob Dylan of gangsta rap) would say, “things DONE changed”.

Well, you saw the furore that ensued when the report was published. I’m tempted to call it a ‘blacklash’. A lot of people weren’t having it.

A lot of people called foul.

And now no less an august body than the United Nations has rejected and condemned its conclusion. The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent accuses the report of trying to “normalise white supremacy”. Ouch.

It is particularly Dr Sewell’s assertion that “we no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities,” that has caused the most contention.

And I get why he says that.

Put simply, it’s difficult to see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities when you’ve made it.

Arguably, when you’ve made it as a black man or woman you are no longer a member of the ethnic minorities in this complex and often contradictory web of race.

As unhelpful as the term is in a ‘moral maze’ of race issues, when we are described as ‘ethnic minorities’ it is invariably in a negative context.

Otherwise we’re British, see

MAKING A STAND: Protesters outside New Scotland Yard in London, as part of an anti-racism demonstration

No less an august body than the UN has rejected and condemned its conclusion ourselves as British and, often enough, are regarded separately from the vast majority of our racial group. A policeman, for example, might pull you over in a BMW, but he definitely ain’t going to ramp with you if you’re in a Bentley. Trust. He’ll treat you like he treats any other white person, even though you’re black.

STATUS

When you’re afforded the privileges of a white person because of your financial status and achievements, arguably you should be counted as a white person and not be seen as representative of the race.

How different this report would have been if it had been written by the black people who have not achieved, despite their hard work and perseverance, the utopia of a ‘fairish’ Britain that this race report concludes is the state of the nation. It would have reached very different conclusions.

It would have said “Inglann is a bitch” to quote the words of poet Linton Kwesi Johnson whose dialectic is used to strengthen the report’s oft-repeated refrain that Britain has moved on from the bad old days, without daring to say everything is perfect.

Is this the meaning of ‘white privilege’, I wonder. Whereas the term is more commonly used to define the advantages of being white, I wonder if it is not more accurately used as being the advantages that an upwardly mobile, successful, wealthy, powerful black person has.

They are bestowed the ‘privileges’ that would otherwise only be

this report often asks, this gruesome stat is screaming “LOOK AT ME!” TWENTY-FOUR times more likely to be killed than their white counterparts. Would you send your children into a war zone where they were 24 times

afforded to white people – the privilege not to be stopped and searched repeatedly.

I myself am a beneficiary of such privilege. I have risen above the ashes of Broadwater Farm in Tottenham where I grew up being continually harassed by police in the area.

sion. That’s the Britain we live in. If you want to be part of the ‘in crowd’, you’ve got to move out of the ghetto, to paraphrase Johnny Clarke’s ‘move out of babylon, rastaman’.

And for real, I don’t see it like the majority of black people see

PROGRESS

If you want to be part of the ‘in crowd’, you’ve got to move out of the ghetto

Now, having become “the voice of Britain” as I am described on my overnight programme at the BBC, I don’t get that treatment.

I have only been pulled over once in the last year and only twice in the last three years.

That for me is progress. And I don’t give the cops no lip when they come up with some trumped up excuse for pulling me over.

And for every day that passes I become more and more removed from the experience of other black people who have not moved out of the ghetto and risen to the top in their profes-

it any more. I can’t understand why they are so angry and why they keep complaining. I don’t get it. If I can make it in this country anyone can.

And yet there is one statistic that even I can’t ignore. Black youth are 24 times more likely to die as a result of a homicide than their white counterparts.

It’s a shocking statistic that shocked the members of the panel. So when you ask what has race got to do with it, as

more likely to die than their white counterparts?

However far you are removed from the community that is the statistic that tells you that race has got everything to do with it.

And we all know that. Otherwise the evidence is redundant.

Especially in a report which suggests over and over again that because it bases its conclusions on the evidence. If that is the evidence it is illogical to conclude that race is not a fac-

tor or that it is less of a factor in determining outcomes. TWENTY-FOUR TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE KILLED THAN THEIR WHITE COUNTERPARTS. That is the reality for young black men. That suggests race is more of a factor than it was in our parents’ and our grandparents’ day. At least 24 times MORE of a factor, I wager.

UNSAFE

The ultimate outcome from any Government race report should be that we are enabled to live as happy and safe a life as our white counterparts. That we and our families are protected.

Until the Government realises that they can assemble together as many symposiums or ‘moral mazes’ they like to tell them what they want to hear, but that does not get them round the charge that, based on the evidence, Britain is UNSAFE for young black men. Apparently race has very little to do with it.

DOTUN ADEBAYO, BRITAIN’S MOST CELEBRATED BLACK BROADCASTER, IS KNOWN AS THE KING OF THE NIGHTTIME AIRWAVES. ALL VIEWS HERE ARE HIS OWN. LISTEN TO HIM OVERNIGHT ON BBC 5 LIVE FROM 1-5AM SATURDAY MORNINGS - MONDAY MORNINGS & 1AM - 4AM ON BBC RADIO LONDON (WEDNESDAY TO FRIDAY MORNINGS). FOLLOW HIM ON TWITTER: @dotunadebayo

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MAY 2021

Feature

Health

Vaccination programme is making huge strides Around 40 million people in the UK have now received at least one dose of a vaccine to protect against COVID-19 – but take-up among black people is lower, possibly due to lack of trust. By Samantha Henry

A

ROUND 40 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to the UK’s population since the first jab was given to 90-year-old Margaret Keenan in December 2020.

The UK COVID-19 vaccines delivery plan aimed to vaccinate all persons aged over 50 and the most vulnerable by mid-April.

The plan would later expand to ensure that all adults in the UK would receive the vaccine by autumn.

On April 12 this year, it was reported that all over-50s and high-risk groups had been offered a vaccine, which was days short of the national deadline.

This was a major achievement for the UK and was recognised by the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, as the passing of “another hugely significant milestone” in efforts to protect the population from the disease.

Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, made by a US firm, became the third vaccine to be approved for use in the UK last month.

The Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation provided advice on a vaccine roll-out plan with the newest group, over-45s, receiving their

BREAKING GROUND: Virologist Dr Kizzmekia Corbett helped to develop the Moderna vaccine

The chance of developing a blood clot from the vaccine is rare first dose of Moderna’s vaccine. Despite the high uptake of vaccines in the UK, it remains significantly lower among minority ethnic groups than that of the white population.

The disparities in vaccine uptake may be due to medical mistrust, socioeconomic factors, religious practices and/or cultural differences.

“Clotting risk from Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine is extremely rare” There have been numerous reports around blood clots developing in patients who have recently taken Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

The European Medicine’s Agency (EMA) concluded that while the vaccine is not associated with an increase in the overall risk of blood clots, the vaccine may be associated with

very rare cases of blood clots in patients that have low platelet counts (thrombocytopenia).

Despite the clotting scare, the chances of developing blood clots from Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine is extremely rare with a risk of only one in every 200,000. Also, the risk of death from taking Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine is only one in every 800,000.

Amidst concerns around the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and its possible roles in blood clotting, Ireland is one of the latest countries to restrict the use of the vaccine for those under 60.

The UK is being advised to also restrict the use of the vaccines by not administering it to those under 30.

“Moderna’s vaccine uses the same mRNA technology as Pfizer-BioNTech’s” The newest addition to the approved COVID-19 vaccines in the UK is from a US company called Moderna, whose development was led by an African-American virologist and immunologist, Dr Kizzmekia Corbett.

People aged under 30 will be offered the Moderna or PfizerBioNTech vaccines as an alternative to Oxford-AstraZeneca due to the reports being made around rare blood clots.

Elle Taylor, a 24-year-old carer from Wales, became the first Briton to receive the Moderna vaccine on the morning of April 7.

Moderna’s vaccine uses the same synthetic mRNA technology as Pfizer’s, which essentially provides our cells with instructions on making a harmless piece of the “spike protein” found on the outer surface of the coronavirus.

The body then recognises the spike protein as ‘foreign’ and produces antibodies to eliminate the pathogen. These antibodies are ‘stored’ and will

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GAINING PROTECTION: Frewyne Hadera receives her first jab of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds back in December last year readily attack the ‘real case’ of the virus whenever an infection arises. These vaccines cannot give someone COVID-19 because mRNA vaccines do not contain the live virus. They do not interfere with our DNA in any form because the mRNA

Vaccine uptake among ethnic minority groups Between December 8 2020 and March 11 2021, more than 90.2 per cent of UK’s population aged 70 and over had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. However,

More effort should be placed on regaining the confidence of the BAME population never enters the nucleus of the cells, where our DNA is found.

The Moderna vaccine continues to make great strides in the fight against COVID-19. Recent studies show that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is 90 per cent effective against all cases of the disease up to six months after the second dose.

This is a strong efficacy and only 4.1 per cent less than the original figure (94.1 per cent) published in The New England Journal of Medicine in December 2020.

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there was a higher percentage of the white British population that was vaccinated, compared with ethnic minority groups.

Within ethnic minority groups, the lowest vaccination rates were seen among black Africans (58.8 per cent) and black Caribbeans (68.8 per cent). This was followed by people who are Bangladeshi (72.7 per cent) and Pakistani (74.0 per cent).

A major factor accounting for the low vaccination rates

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among ethnic minority groups stems from a medical mistrust due to a long and uncomfortable history between medicine and race. Other factors such as culture and religion may have played a role, as people who are Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs demonstrated a lower uptake of the vaccines.

Socioeconomic statuses have also impacted the low uptake of vaccines among ethnic minority groups, as people that lived in more deprived areas were less likely to receive the vaccine as opposed to those that lived in less deprived areas.

Vaccine hesitancy within ethnic minority groups has been a major threat to the vaccine uptake, not only in the UK but worldwide.

Some of the most severe complications and deaths from coronavirus have been among patients that are from the black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities.

Therefore, more effort should be placed on regaining the confidence of the BAME population where possible.

www.voice-online.co.uk

MAY 2021 THE VOICE |

15

Careers

‘We have a career in the Met’

By Veron Graham

W

HILE THE Metropolitan Police’s quest to ensure its officers and lay staff better reflect the area’s ethnic and gender diversity is well documented, the contrasting experiences of two black female officers suggest it is becoming a viable career choice for women of colour.

PCs Derean Roach and Anantieley Hunter are both mothers and career changers who made the choice to join the Met’s growing ranks of female employees, which stands at just under 35 per cent.

PC Roach from north London previously worked in administration in a high street supermarket and chose a career in the Met while studying full-time at university. Two years in, while juggling family commitments, the thirty-something mother of four regards her career choice, which her family and friends were “very hesitant” about her taking, enables her to “be an example and a role model”.

This despite taking abuse from black people as a foot patrol officer during last year’s protests following the murder of George Floyd in the United States.

Essex-based PC Hunter – a mother of two and former hair-

dresser, in her late 40s – credits her role with giving her a sense of extreme pride. Having joined the force in 2004, and often encouraged by other black females, she sees their presence on the force as a contributing factor to “encourage us to feel confident in reporting crimes and know that crimes (against us) will be taken seriously.”

The Met is supporting its call for more female applicants with a series of provisions for families and new parents.

SUPPORT

A force spokesperson said: “We have dedicated Met baby case managers providing HR support for things such as risk assessments, time off for appointments, pregnancy-related sickness and preparing for a return to the workplace.

“Colleagues going through pregnancy, adoption or sharing parental leave are allocated a Met baby advisor to help them through the necessary processes at work.”

But HR adjustments and community aspirations aside, what would make an ambitious black mother opt for a career in an organisation that historically has a less than ideal reputation among black Caribbean and African heritage communities?

The Voice put on its own investigation to find out.

‘I enjoy meeting people and learning new skills’

PC Derean Roach jumped at the opportunity to apply for the Met after seeing an ad online VG: What made you select the police as a career option?

PC Roach: “I was studying criminology and criminal justice at university and I wanted to find out more about criminal behaviour. Then I saw an advertisement on Facebook about police recruitment. I applied with the expectation I would not get it – but I did and here I am today two years later.”

VG: When did the idea form and how long did it take before you acted on it?

PC Roach: “Sometime in late 2018, and I acted on it within six months.”

VG: What was the initial reaction of family and friends, compared to now?

PC Roach: “Family and

surrounding police misconduct affect you?

PC Roach: “I was very nervous at first. During the Black Lives Matter protests, I was on foot patrol and some black people made negative comments about me being black and being a police officer.”

NEW OPPORTUNITY: PC Derean Roach in her uniform, and right, after graduating from university friends were very hesitant about me doing the job, as they thought I would be picked on because of my ethnicity.”

VG: What effect did the unrest around events in UK and US

VG: How does the reality of being in the Met compare to how you envisaged it to be?

PC Roach: “Being in the Met is not what I envisaged it to be based on other people’s opinions. I do find it a lot better than that and the colleagues I work with are very supportive.

I enjoy meeting new people and learning new skills.”

VG: What would you say to a critic who said given its history and current goings on, the Met is no place for a woman, or a person of colour in 2021?

PC Roach: “I would disagree.

Being in this role for the last two years, I have found that there are so many opportunities for women to advance in the Met. As a woman and also from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background, I also feel you have to take a stand and have pride in yourself, so that you can be a role model.”

The Met in numbers (as of February 28, 2021)

• 32,475 – number of police officers - 9,220 (28.4 per cent) are female, 1,139 (3.5 per cent) are black • 9,813 – number of lay staff

- 5,563 (56.7 per cent) are female, 1,026 (10.5 per cent) are black • 1,260 – number of community support officers -437 (34.7 per cent) are female,

184 (14.6 per cent) are black • 1,857 – number of special constables - 513 (27.6 per cent) are female, 109 (5.9 per cent) are black • 4,335 – number of sergeants

- 923 (21.3 per cent) are female, 442 (10.2 per cent) are non-white • 1,331 – number of inspectors - 302 (22.7 per cent) are female, 125 (9.4 per cent) are non-white

‘I was told I was too small and black – I proved them wrong’ PC Anantieley Hunter says that she has faced doubt and setbacks in her journey – but she says the Met is very accommodating VG: What made you select the police as a career option?

PC Hunter: “From a young age I had always wanted to be a police officer. Initially I liked the uniform, the fast cars and I wanted to help people. As a teenager, my family home was burgled three times and it always made me angry, because the culprits were never caught, and I suppose I thought I could make a change. I hated that feeling of coming home always being scared.”

VG: When did the idea form and how long did it take before you acted on it?

PC Hunter: “All in all, it took about two years. I

worked as a hairdresser for a few years, then had my children but always felt that I wanted a career in the police.

There were a few obstacles I thought were in the way of that, like my (lack of) height.

I became a station reception officer for the Met, spoke to my then-inspector and he encouraged me to apply.”

VG: What was the initial reaction of family and friends, compared to now?

PC Hunter: “I had no issues with my family – especially my mother.

She looked after my chil-

DOWNTIME: PC Anantieley Hunter away from work; inset left, standing proudly in her uniform

dren while I was in training and changed her working hours so she could take them to school and now introduces me as ‘my daughter the police officer’.

“I told only a few friends:

one male I told when we were in college laughed and said I would never get in as I was ‘too small and black.’ I had to prove him wrong. He was very shocked, but happy for me when I finally passed.”

VG: What effect did the unrest around events in UK and US surrounding police misconduct affect you?

PC Hunter: “I was shocked by the reaction of some of the public. I was also concerned by what I had seen some police colleagues say on social media. So for a while I took myself off of social media and deleted those colleagues altogether.

“I was angry that these were people that I work with and that did make me question my role in the Met. However dealing with victims of crime and helping people made me reconsider.”

VG: How does the reality of being in the Met compare to how you envisaged it to be?

PC Hunter: “I came into the Met expecting it to be very

difficult and challenging, especially as a woman – and a woman of colour. I suffered more racial hatred from young black men outside the Met. I have not personally faced any direct racial incidents in the work place.”

VG: What would you say to a critic who said given its history and current goings on, the Met is no place for a woman, or a person of colour in 2021?

PC Hunter: “I would say join and see for yourself. We can’t shout for change if we are not prepared to make one. The Met is very accommodating for women.

“I have been a single mother whilst in the Met and I did not struggle. The help and support is there – flexibility, part-time working and shifts to suit home life.”

16 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

Special feature

Continued from page 3

The Commission could have looked at and improve on the policies and high-quality early years provision, like Sure Start, in place prior to 2010 that helped to close the gap. Also, the loss of educational maintenance grant that kept disadvantaged children in further education.

The Commission did not want to call out those schools that are failing black children.

A greater number of black parents are paying for private tuition and sending their children to private schools, which a study shows does not necessarily overcome the issue of racism and stereotyping (see The Educational Strategies of the Black Middle Classes, Vincent, C., Rollock, N., Ball, S. & Gillborn, D. (2011); The Educational Strategies of the Black Middle Classes: Project summary. London: Institute of Education).

Early in the report they boldly assert that the issue is class, not race.

That would have meant having to acknowledging critical race theory which we know Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch is against. So, they just note the poor educational outcomes for black boys regardless of socio-economic background but fail to say anything about the cause or tackling it.

The important work of supplementary schools is also recognised. An inclusive curriculum and appropriate support should make this type of “agency” unnecessary.

The child whose parent is juggling three jobs to feed them is not going to be the child who has private tuition, music lessons, learns additional languages and has travel experiences that helps to achieve better grades and admission to the best universities and medical schools.

The extended school day offering extracurricular activities, support and safety is interesting but teachers are already overburdened and it would need funding for additional staff, teaching assistants, supervisory staff and other resources.

We all want to see an inclusive curriculum but it is hard to see how a Government in denial of the unpalatable parts of its history, and fixated on preserving monuments, and memorials to slave traders and violent colonialists, can or would develop a “well-sequenced set of teaching resources to tell the multiple, nuanced stories that have shaped the country we live in today embedded within subjects in the statutory curriculum”.

The reference to the “new Caribbean experience” is an in-

Race report

Good diversity training cannot happen without awareness of the biases sensitive indication of what to expect.

Moving on, discussion on disparity in entry rates into higher education does not look at disparity in admission policies of the Universities. The increase in tuition fees in 2012 led to a sharp reduction in the number of mature students at university when they are more likely to be from disadvantaged groups, ethnic minority backgrounds, have a disability, or have non-traditional qualifications. There are no recommendations to reverse this.

There are still snow-capped peaks The acronym BAME was never universally accepted as it disguises the very significant disparities between different racial groups and even within groups.

Another leaked headline is for organisations to stop funding unconscious bias training.

This is pure dog whistling.

They state that they recognise “the role that diversity and inclusion training has had in moving the dial and creating a space for conversations in organisations to redress actual and perceived discrimination”.

Good – but appreciate this includes awareness of unconscious bias and preference.

It has long been shown that the most helpful interventions are mentorship and sponsorship however, few from underrepresented groups have the contacts and they systematically fail to be appointed even in the widest of pools. Good diversity training is not one off or confrontational but part of the toolkit to eliminate bias. It cannot work without awareness of the biases, preferences and group think we all hold.

The Commission calls on the Government to work with a panel of academics and practitioners to develop resources and evidence-based approaches of what works to advance fairness in the workplace.

It is difficult to see how this is to be achieved without acknowledging that there is systemic bias in the public and private sector including the NHS and Civil Service which retain their “snow-capped peaks”.

Whilst the report headlines that the ethnic pay gap is closing, the data shows that some ethnic groups do far better than

DESPERATE MEASURES: More parents of black African and Caribbean children are seeking private schooling and tuition others. Pay gaps can describe the structure of an organisation and how different ethnic groups are distributed across its pay bands.

If data is not regularly collected, employers can be unaware of the disparities in their own organisation and fail to take the necessary steps to eradicate those disparities including merited promotions.

Mandatory pay reporting in large firms and organisations must be reinstated, otherwise they will fail to tackle race and

black people regardless of the person’s economic standing.

They accept disproportion exists but pivot to offending behaviour is “always a choice”.

Nothing is said about bias in arrests, charging decisions, the courts, probation officers or acknowledgement of race in the well-worn path of school suspension, exclusion, pupil referral units into the criminal justice system through systematic and institutional failures in a range of large public bodies.

There is a total lack of empathy

Mandatory pay reporting in large firms and organisations must be reinstated gender-based pay disparity and undermine any sense of levelling up.

and failure to address institutional racism as identified in the MacPherson report.

The justice system Although this is one of the areas that most negatively impacts African and Caribbean people, the justice system, including criminal justice, is dealt with superficially.

A discussion on disproportionate stop and search indicates that while policymakers are telling us that increased stop and search is to deter knife crime, the police on the street say it is to target drug use.

So, no change in 40 years.

There is no comment on the fact that stop and search is disproportionately used against

Simplistic and divisive There is little recognition of the different migration patterns and experiences of different groups including the economic starting base, and in particular the systematic racism in the education system faced by the large number of Caribbean black children who arrived here in the 1950s and 1960s, of which I am one, and make divisive comparisons with those from Africa more recently arrived in significant numbers.

In my own profession, Nigerian lawyers’ qualifications were not accepted in England

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and Wales until the 1990s and a qualified transfer test significantly contributed to the large numbers of black solicitors that we now see, not some new liberalism that we failed to engage with.

There are simplistic statements such as, “If not enough young black people are getting the professional jobs they expected after graduating, then we need to examine the subjects they are studying and the careers advice they are receiving”.

They are also not getting the professional jobs having studied the right subjects and obtaining higher grades than white peers.

We know that children become what they see.

The data shows black Caribbean boys have significantly lower expectations than nearly all ethnic groups of going to university but the problem is thrown back on them as “it is evident that ethnic minority groups have agency to overcome obstacles and achieve success”.

Black Caribbean men still face greater obstacles than black women getting into many professions.

The Commission mentions us a lot but was not written for us. The terms of reference were fixed for the whole population to avoid focus on the adverse racial disparity that continues through life.

White working-class boys may well leave school with

voicenews

fewer or no qualifications, but data shows they still get wellpaid jobs and more easily improve their social status.

The opposite is true for black Africans who are most likely to be well qualified yet underemployed.

The Commission state “that pessimistic narratives about race have also been reinforced by a rise of identity politics, as old class divisions have lost traction”.

Race is not about class. Racism is about power and control.

Many African and Caribbean people have achieved success despite the challenges but not enough and certainly not representative in numbers.

The Commission needs to engage with the wealth of evidence of evidence and come up with an action plan to implement past reviews and fix the structural and systemic faults that are shown to still cause racial disparity.

Dr Cordella Bart-Stewart OBE is a solicitor, former governor of Staffordshire University, external examiner for a national Law School and co-founder of the Black Solicitors Network. She is a Council member of the Law Society of England & Wales and Board of IMPRESS, the independent monitor for the press. She was awarded the OBE for services to the legal profession, diversity and education and here comments on the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report.

www.voice-online.co.uk

MAY 2021

THE VOICE | 17

Education

‘The time to end school exclusions is now’

YET ANOTHER DISADVANTAGE: Statistics show that children who are already marginalised in British schools are also more likely to be excluded

The mainstream media have been talking about children losing learning time – but it’s clear that some children were already unfairly excluded before the pandemic hit

W

ITH EXISTING inequalities sharpened by the pandemic, a moratorium on school exclusions is the only way to protect already marginalised children and young people from the structural and institutional racism the Government’s latest race report so strenuously denies.

A moratorium is the temporary prohibition of an activity, according to Google’s dictionary.

No More Exclusions (NME) is a grassroots coalition movement campaigning for racial justice in education.

Its latest report reveals why we urgently need a moratorium on school exclusions, now more than ever, before even more children and young people fall through the cracks.

In September 2020, NME called on the Government to issue a moratorium on school exclusions during and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since then, the Runnymede Trust has come forward in support of this appeal, and the Government’s own mental health tsar has issued a separate call to end exclusions in light of the pandemic.

NME’s latest report, School Exclusions During the Pandemic: Why we need a Moratorium, reveals that exclusions have been used excessively (and disproportionately) following pupils’ difficult return to school, with a total of 3,628 exclusions reported by just 32 secondary schools between September and December 2020.

This new research demonstrates that the Government needs to act now to ensure that all young people are supported to stay in school, bringing into effect an immediate morato-

How many students have been told to ‘stay at home’ again? rium on all forms of exclusion and exclusionary practices within the English education system.

Schools in England have finally reopened to all pupils.

But how many students have been swiftly dismissed, sent away again and told to ‘stay at home’ once more? How many have been suspended or even expelled from school, excluded from what should be ‘safe spaces’ and the national ‘catch up’ effort? While it’s too early to know what is currently taking place, we can turn to the period after schools first reopened in September 2020 as a clear, indicative parallel.

Vulnerable children are excluded disproportionately In October 2020, NME sent Freedom of Information requests to schools and academies across England, seeking otherwise unavailable data on exclusions issued before, during and immediately after the first national lockdown.

While the response rate was strikingly poor, with only a quarter of schools responding within the legal timeframe, its findings were nonetheless shocking.

It discovered that exclusions were firmly on the rise again from September 2020 onwards, with both fixed-term and internal exclusions being issued at a particularly alarming rate. By mid-November, one secondary

school in its sample had issued over 150 fixed-term exclusions on a school roll of just over 800 pupils.

Another had actually issued more internal exclusions in two months after reopening than it had in seven months prior to the closures. Its data also supported what both NME and Oxford’s ‘Excluded Lives’ team had predicted, with new reasons for exclusion emerging as a direct result of the pandemic and what schools’ vaguely referred to as pupils’ ‘failure to follow COVID rules’.

Clearly, exclusions are being used to manage the additional pressures of COVID-19 on schools and staff while penalising children and young people for their emotional responses to this ‘new normal’.

A well-known problem While the specific context of these findings is new (or, as we keep hearing, ‘unprecedented’), the rates and patterns of exclusion they reveal are depressingly familiar. In our sample, as elsewhere, both Pakistani and mixed white and black Caribbean children were disproportionately excluded; almost half (46 per cent) of all excluded pupils were eligible for free

schools meals; and almost half (44 per cent) were registered as having Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND), 31 per cent of which had no Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) to support them.

These results mirror what a wealth of academic research,

the Government rhetoric about safeguarding vulnerable children, we know the tragic trajectories of excluded children, from child criminal exploitation (CCE) to the PRU-to-prison pipeline. Indeed, we’ve all read the stories of what can happen when certain children ‘fall

The crisis is buried within the patchy reporting on internal exclusions that is still not even required by law media commentary, Government data, race disparity audits, exclusion profiles and commissioned reviews have already exposed. With decades of research and data behind us, we know that black and brown boys and Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller children are statistically far more likely to be excluded than other pupils.

We know that pupils eligible for free school meals are vastly overrepresented in national exclusions data, and that children with additional needs and/ or disabilities are consistently, unfairly excluded, even when an EHCP is in place. Despite all

through the cracks’ of a system that was never designed to catch them.

Full picture remains unclear We will not know the scale of COVID-19’s impact on exclusions until the release of national Government data in July 2022 – a full 18 months after schools reopened in the aftermath of unprecedented nationwide closures. NME’s findings shed light on this uncharted period, but they also point towards what we cannot or are not allowed to know: that is, the full extent of the exclusions

crisis in the English education system.

This crisis is not merely obscured by the lack of real-time exclusions data (not to mention the prevalence of illegal practices such as ‘off-rolling’).

Rather, it is buried within the patchy reporting on internal exclusions that is still not even required by law; the granularisation of ethnicity data that conceals black and brown children’s persistent over-exclusion; the non-intersectional datasets that disguise pupils’ compound vulnerabilities; and the vague, catch-all ‘reasons for exclusion’ on which unconscious bias and non-accountability thrive.

Over half of all exclusions reported by schools in NME’s sample were justified as being for ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’ (36 per cent) or, quite simply, ‘other’ (22 per cent). As a reason for exclusion, ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’ facilitates race and class-based discrimination and, together with the astonishingly opaque category ‘other’, acts as a smokescreen for schools’ decisions to isolate and exclude.

Continued on page 29

18 | THE VOICE FEBRUARY 2021

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THE VOICE| 19

20 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

Midlands News

NEWS IN BRIEF

by Veron Graham

IT’S FULL CIRCLE FOR NURSE LEO ON WARD

Staff nurse Leo Davis is always braced for the unexpected while at work – but when his former university lecturer arrived as a volunteer, it was quite the shock

POSITIVE: Sunrise Bakery’s Errol Drummond Bakery buoyed during COVID-19 pandemic SUNRISE Bakery, one of the UK’s first Jamaican-owned businesses, has reportedly performed admirably during the post-pandemic era which has wrought great damage to many in the retail sector. The business, which turns 55 this year, makes and supplies close to two million loaves across the UK and has seen its online sales boom during lockdown.

Buoyed by its success and recognising the strides made in the catering/food industries by the likes of Deliveroo and UberEats, CEO and son of co-founder Herman, Errol Drummond, said: “We are looking to the future – which is online.

The supermarkets reported how sales of our products went up and they don’t look as though they will be falling anytime soon.”

Council can help if you’re struggling A WELFARE rights team is calling for anyone who needs help with debt, food or fuel poverty to get in touch. Since the pandemic struck until the end of 2020, Nottingham City Council Welfare Rights Team has provided food parcels and helped 300 people resolve energy bill issues, written off £1.6million of debt and helped its clients gain over £8 million in extra benefits.

Local people who are in financial trouble or are expecting to face difficulties soon, are being encouraged to call 0115 915 1355 (8.30am–4.50pm weekdays) or email welfarerights@ nottinghamcity.gov.uk.

A

MALE GRADUATE nurse has gone from student to coworker when his former lecturer from the University of Wolverhampton began volunteering at the same Birmingham hospital as him to ease the pressure placed on the NHS by COVID-19.

The circumstance has reunited Leo Davis, Staff Nurse in the Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust Hospital, with his former lecturer, James Pearson-Jenkins, Head of Academic Innovation in the University’s College of Learning and Teaching, who is a registered nurse with hospital theatre experience.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw James turn up on the ward, it was a total surprise for both of us! It’s amazing that he has taken time out to come back into practice and it was even better for me to share my knowledge with him, talking him through the ventilation process which was so important when the pandemic escalated.

“It’s been a big learning curve for me – and the Critical Care Team – but I’m so pleased to have had the opportunity to work alongside James and show him how his teaching has been put into practice and is benefitting our communities.”

James said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact upon the local NHS workforce, particularly in ITU, where there was a sharp in-

FULL CIRCLE: Leo Davis has gone on to become a staff nurse after graduating from the University of Wolverhampton – but ended up showing his old lecturer the ropes during a shift; inset below left, on duty with his usual colleagues

I’ve never felt so proud to see one of my students working at the forefront crease in admissions of patients with Type 1 Respiratory Failure.

“ITU is one of the most complex areas of nursing, caring for some of the most vulnerable patients in the acute Trust and therefore, even with my anaesthetic experience, I was glad to see a friendly face from the university.

EXPERTISE

“I was really thrilled to meet up with Leo again as I taught him when he was starting out on his nursing career path, except this time, he was teaching me, as ITU is not my area of expertise.

I’ve never felt so proud to see one of my students working at the forefront of practice within the pandemic and it really was an honour to be taught by him, a complete role reversal for me, and to work alongside him.”

From Great Barr in Birmingham, Leo, 28, started his nursing career when he studied for a Learning, Education and Progression (LEaP) course in 2014 - which offered him the opportunity to progress onto a healthcare related degree course.

Leo was working on reception in the Oncology Department of the Birmingham Treatment Centre, City Hospital, when someone mentioned that he was really good with patients and had a good bedside manner.

Although he had never considered nursing as a profession and didn’t think he had the right qualifications, he looked for a course that he could study part-time – taking the leap into a completely

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new career. After completing the LEaP course, he decided to study at the next level and graduated with a First Class degree in Nursing in 2018.

PROGRESS

He is now studying for a Postgraduate Master’s degree in Adult Critical Care Nursing and his ambition is to progress to become a Critical Care Nurse and then eventually a Critical Care Charge Nurse.

Leo added: “I’d never thought of nursing as a career because you don’t see many men in the job, but when someone mentioned I was good with patients, I began to think about looking to progress.

“I’m so proud of what I have achieved and I’ve really en-

@thevoicenews

Working during the pandemic has been extremely challenging joyed the whole process, putting my learning into practice to get better outcomes for patients.

“Working during the pandemic has been extremely challenging but the team has really rallied. We know a lot more about COVID-19 now so we can provide better care.”

Reflecting on his university

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days, Leo continued: “I had an amazing experience with the University of Wolverhampton.

“I was supported by everyone within the academic and placement teams and feel that this support and the passion I developed for nursing, allowed me to achieve a First in my degree.”

James added: “Without the LEaP course, Leo would not have been able to pursue his dream of becoming a registered nurse and it’s amazing how far he’s come.

“It’s an amazing achievement.”

The reunited duo reflected on the dedication of NHS and care sector colleagues during the pandemic.

The university is welcoming interested parties to its forthcoming Virtual Open Days.

www.voice-online.co.uk

MAY 2021 THE VOICE | 21

Midlands News

SPOTLIGHT ON BOOK AT MENTAL HEALTH EVENT

Now and Beyond festival showcased Joan Turner CBE’s Adventures in Bodiwell series

T

HE UK’S first-ever mental health festival for schools and colleges has taken place online and prominently featured a book that was co-written specifically to cater for children by Birmingham-based activist and educator Joan Turner CBE. The book, entitled Leery and Whiney Wheedle In - the first in the ‘Adventures in Mind-Bodiwell’ series of mental health books for children, explores the

It is more important now, perhaps more than ever, that we maintain a healthy lifestyle relationship between thoughts and feelings.

The festival, dubbed Now and Beyond, saw over 300 mental health experts deliver an array of mental health resources to over 1,000 organisations to counter the damage the pandemic has caused to children’s mental health.

Joan, who was awarded a CBE by the Queen for her outstanding contribution to community development in 2002, said: “It is more important now,

perhaps more than ever that we maintain a healthy lifestyle – eating a balanced diet, exercising and making correct choices.

We know that healthy children are more likely to become healthy adults, and hope that ‘Adventures in Bodiwell’ will help children to build healthy, lifelong habits like the characters in the series of books.”

RESOURCES

Book co-writer Dr Erin Turner, Consultant Psychiatrist and trustee of Beyond, added: “I see too often the later effects of poor mental health in childhood. If we are to protect our children and promote mental well-being we have to start from an early age.

“Our hope is that this book and the other resources available from Now and Beyond festival will teach children some simple strategies for mental STRIVING FOR BETTER HEALTH: Joan Turner CBE, centre, pictured supporting a breast cancer charity; inset left, the front cover of her books Leery And Whiney Wheedle In well-being.”

Law firm offering a helping hand towards university tuition fees

Opportunities for families from Midlands community initiative

A WARWICKSHIRE law firm is to mark its forthcoming 175th anniversary by offering to pay a local “disadvantaged young person to have their undergraduate law degree’s tuition fees.”

The offer is among a series of initiatives being planned this year.

The Wright Hassall Law Award, named after the Leamington Spa-based practice, will fund the tuition fees for a young person from Coventry and Warwickshire, who w o u l d otherwise struggle

AN EAST MIDLANDS community initiative is giving families opportunities to play a bigger part in their children’s development and learn new skills at home through virtual teaching.

Opportunities through The Community and Family Learning Project (C&FL) – open to residents of Nottingham City, aged 19 and older – have been arranged to help the local communities rebound from the impact of COVID-19, which has seen many across the country lose jobs/income and found the need to retrain, but often without the confidence, guidance or resource to do so.

A wide selection of the courses are on offer are free to those on qualifying bene-

to afford university, to study for a three-year undergraduate law degree.

Sarah Perry, Managing Partner at Wright Hassall, pictured left, said: “The heart of Wright Hassall is its employees and the firm has always had an ethos of caring and supporting its staff, particularly when life deals them a bit of a blow - and this ethos is reflected into the wider community, too.

“We would not be celebrating our 175th

anniversary if the firm hadn’t had the support of our clients and the wider community over the years we’ve been in business, and this year is about us giving something back.”

REGISTER

To be considered interested parties must submit a short essay as part of the entry procedure, must register their interest at www.wrighthassall175.co.uk. The winner will be selected ahead of the 2022 academic year.

WORKING TOGETHER: The initiative offers a chance for individuals to upskill and retrain

fits, providing they have been UK residents for at least three years.

INFORMAL

A C&FL spokesperson said: “Our courses are informal and easy to understand, our tutors are patient, and all skill levels are welcome with no one made to feel out of place. It’s a great way to gain confidence and develop your

skills – and a way to socialise!”

The learning is provided by a range of local training partners: Enable, Right Track, The Life Education Centre, National Ice Arena Nottingham, the Nottingham Library Service and the Second Chance Learning Academy.

C&FL can be contacted via email to learn@nottinghamcity.gov.uk or by calling 0115 876 4787.

If you have a story for the East or West Midlands, call/text Veron Graham on 07954 572 988, email veronpgraham@gmail.com, or find him on Facebook or LinkedIn

22

| THE VOICE

MAY 2021

Column

The boozer with a backstory

Once known as the Pub in the Park and now a carvery, Allerton Hall’s foundations are built on the profits of slavery, says Dotun Adebayo

I

N THIS, the latest instalment of The Voice’s continuing series looking at how many of Britain’s grandest houses were built on the backs of enslaved Africans via the Caribbean, we reveal the hidden secret of Allerton Hall.

There’s no getting away from it — many of the country’s fabulous mansions built in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth century are stained by the profits of the slave trade

on which they are built. As well as the plantation owners in the colonies who couldn’t fail with the enforced free labour of the enslaved, there were those who made their fortune through other aspects of the trade.

INHUMANE

The transportation of the human cargo made one family so wealthy that they built one of the finest houses in the northwest.

At the time, of course, Liverpool was one of the big three or four slave trade ports in Britain and a lot of money was flowing through the city. Each slave ship carried between 250 and 600 enslaved Af-

They were transported in that condition for two or three months ricans at a time, all packed tight in inhumane conditions for a tortuous journey. These were people who had recently been kidnapped and were now chained together (with no room even to turn) below decks, brutalised as they were transported in that condition for two or three months over an ocean to an unknown destination.

Allerton Hall is a red sandstone three-storey merchant’s mansion with a lion’s head above the front entrance. It was built as a country residence in

the Palladian style of architecture. To the locals, it’s a boozer at one time named the Pub in the Park. It’s on Springwood Avenue in Woolton, just outside Liverpool. And by all accounts, a great place to take the whole family — friendly, welcoming and warm.

Whether you’re stopping for breakfast, lunch or dinner – there’s something to tickle everyone’s fancy. Apparently.

It offers a wide selection of pub classics and traditional roast dinners from its daily carvery, with a choice of up to four joints and seasonal vegetables. But there’s no getting away from it — the mansion also hides a dark history.

The district of Allerton, five miles to the south east of Liverpool, was at the time chosen by some of the city’s most successful merchants for their

HIDDEN HISTORY: Allerton Hall, also inset left in its early days, is a popular eatery, but it was built from slave trading profits mansions. Allerton Hall and its adjacent park were built off the profits of transatlantic enslavement.

The estate was bought for £7,700 in 1736 by brothers John and James Hardman who probably built the current building.

Hardman was a so-called ‘West Indies merchant’ (a euphemism for slave trader).

There were an estimated 54,000 ‘slave voyages’ that slave traders organised in the

300 years of the transatlantic slave trade. Of that number, the Hardmans were responsible for 46 slave voyages between 1729 and 1761. One every eight or nine months. It made them fabulously wealthy.

John Hardman went on to become MP for Liverpool. The irony of Allerton Hall is that the mansion was subsequently owned by an abolitionist, William Ruscoe. Now, though, it’s owned by the council.

FEBRUARY 2021

THE VOICE| 23

24 | THE VOICE

MAY 2021

Special feature

The Africa Centre is still a home away from home

Africa Day 2021 MEMORIES: Left, Gamal Nkrumah and Sally Mugabe in the flagship Africa Centre resource centre in Covent Garden, c.1983; below, banners surround the preparation of the new site at Great Suffolk Street, Southwark, pictured below left (photos: Africa Centre)

Since its inception in the 1960s, the charity has supported the diaspora in Britain – and now it has big plans to make its services accessible to all

T

HE AFRICA Centre has been a home away from home for people of African and Caribbean heritage for decades.

It started off as a safe space for displaced Africans in London at a time when much of the continent was still struggling from the grip of colonialism. A few were in England on scholarships offered by some of the country’s best universities, studying to be the first African lawyers, doctors, accountants and more in their homelands.

The charity has, since its inception in the ‘60s, championed the cause for Africa and its diaspora by promoting the continent’s cultural diversity and highlighting the political and socio-economic developments affecting it. For example, in 1973, renowned Guyanese historian, Walter Rodney visited to lead a successful weekend Conference on ‘Models of Development’ and fellow panAfricanist and thinker Professor Ali Mazrui engaged on the topic of ‘Africa in World Affairs: The next 25 years’.

As time progressed, the centre developed into a dynamic and multi-functional hub for education, culture, community, thought leadership, and entre-

Many distinguished guests who came through the doors went on to become global icons preneurship and innovation. It attracted the best of emerging African intellectuals, politicians, students, creatives and entertainers.

The Association for the Teaching of African and Caribbean Literature held its inaugural conference, ‘How to Teach Caribbean and African Literature in School’ from The Africa Centre in 1979.

A rich legacy From within its belly, at The Africa Centre’s former location in Covent Garden, Alice Walker read passages from The Colour Purple to an enthralled audience. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former South African president Thabo Mbeki would regularly meet at the bar. Jazzie B and Soul II Soul held their

iconic Saturday Club sessions during their four year residence in the ‘80s. Under the legendary Wallah Danga, the famous Limpopo Club hosted some of the biggest African acts at the time including The Bundu Boys, Angelique Kidjo, Fela Kuti, Kanda Bongo Man and many others.

It would of course, be remiss not to mention The Calabash Restaurant, the best place to be in London for the most authentic culinary experience reminiscent of ‘home’. One was as likely to bump into a diplomat or artist as they we were to start a random chat with a student, newly arrived from Dar-e-Salaam, Mogadishu or Harare.

Many of the distinguished guests that came through the doors of The Africa Centre throughout the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s went on to become global icons. The charity is proud of this legacy and plans to continue shining the light on the brilliance of Africa and its people.

Change Today, the centre accepts that it operates in a much different environment and realises the need to adapt. It has started taking steps to ensure that it remains relevant and continues to serve meaningfully and inspire the next generation of pan-African minds.

As the world has gone through seismic transformation as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, so has The Africa Centre gone through its own evolution.

It hopes to emerge out of this major global disruption as the most welcoming cultural space in London, a contemporary safe

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space for the African diaspora and all those who love the continent. It will draw from its rich legacy and connect with the present to inspire the future.

The centre has plans to curate authentic experiences, deliver impactful programmes and facilitate dialogue and debate.

There will be wider participation in the governance of the charity through recruitment of more trustees with specific skills and experience to ensure a more diverse board.

It will also strengthen its connection with the continent by collaborating with its people and supporting grassroots initiatives.

Renewed vision The Africa Centre is working on a number of exciting plans for the future which include the opening of a new home for contemporary African culture and heritage in London later this year. The new headquarters is in Southwark, the cultural capital of London and building work is currently under way.

This will be more than just brick and mortar but an oasis for those thirsting for bona fide African vibes.

A cultural melting pot and marketplace for art, innovation and thought. The new space will bring communities together and through various programmes aligned with the charity’s mission to educate about, connecting to, advocate for Africa.

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The Africa Centre has ambitions to be the number one spot for African cuisine Within the new flagship building will be an African restaurant and bar, operated in partnership with Tatale, a dynamic young collective, conscious of their African roots and very much in tune with black British culture.

In African culture, food is a means of preserving memories and connecting with distant homelands and loved ones.

The Africa Centre has ambitions to be the number one spot for authentic African cuisine.

There will be a gallery and exhibition space on the second floor, a learning and research centre on the third and a business suite on the fourth.

The centre’s aim is to be able to bring people together and deliver relevant programmes in partnership with individuals and organisations with aligned goals and values.

The new Africa Centre will be for all ages, races, colours and creeds, a space to truly experience Africa without being on the continent.

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Young people The #BlackLivesMatter-led protests of 2020 demonstrated the level of young people’s zeal and consciousness – we saw hundreds speaking boldly and leading from the front.

The Africa Centre is a place where they will be nurtured and equipped to shape their ideas into action under the ‘Young Africa Centre’.

YAC is a space for 18- to 29-year-olds to gather, both physically and virtually, and exchange ideas, run their own events and campaigns in support of the charity’s broader vision.

The Africa Centre has demonstrated its commitment to working with young people by commissioning young creatives and working with local schools through its Education Through Culture Campaign.

Chief marketing and communications officer Belvin Tawuya, pictured left, said: “The Africa Centre belongs to the people; it is a place that means so much to so many and we are beyond excited to be at the heart of the African renaissance currently taking place.

“We take our role as custodians of African culture and heritage in the UK very seriously and feel duty bound to continue promoting positive conversations about Africa through our various offerings.

“We look forward to welcoming everyone to the opening of our new home later this year.”

www.voice-online.co.uk

MAY 2021 THE VOICE |

Africa Day 2021

25

Special feature

Bringing communities together through farming

BUILDING A NEW FUTURE: Marwo Mohammed Salah, centre, with his family in Hilaweyn refugee camp in Dollo Ado woreda, Ethiopia; inset bottom, Marwo Meriem Mohammed Ibrahim, a Somalian refugee also living in Hilaweyn refugee camp, is enjoying using her new skills (photos: Maheder Haileselassie)

Lauren Midgley, communications officer at Farm Africa, looks at how the international development charity is giving refugees a second chance through a project designed to equip and empower individuals

T

HOUSANDS OF refugees have had to leave their homes, possessions and jobs to escape conflict and natural disasters in Somalia.

Many have sought a new home in the neighbouring Dollo Ado woreda of eastern Ethiopia.

“Most refugees arrive in camps with nothing but a few items they can carry – having left their entire lives behind them,” commented Redwan Getachew, project coordinator at international charity Farm Africa. “Without access to finances or land, most families have no means to rebuild their lives and have to rely on food and aid to survive.”

Building lives in this region has been made more difficult by Dollo Ado’s harsh, arid climate.

Over decades, traditional farming techniques that used to yield successful harvests now fail to stand up to prolonged droughts and heavier rainfall.

This, combined with COVID-19 and unprecedented swarms of locusts, has forced even more families in the region into extreme poverty.

Saynab Ahmednur, pictured inset above, a widow with four children who grew up in the region and has watched the landscape of her village Godbokol change dramatically, commented: “The rains are not coming as regularly as in the old days. Things have changed a lot now. This place was covered with forests when I was young. There were many trees and we used to go to the forest and eat fruits as we would like to. But it is not the same these days. We lost the trees.”

Most refugees arrive in camps with nothing but a few items, having left their entire lives behind them To ensure those who are living in the region can make a sufficient income, Farm Africa, with funding from the World Food Programme, has been working with the Ethiopian government to provide both refugees and host communities with access to land and agricultural training to increase sustainable farming in the region.

By working with 1,000 local residents and 1,000 refugees who also now call Dollo Ado home, Farm Africa is helping farmers identify, access and grow seed varieties that can withstand droughts and pests, so communities can build businesses even in the most challenging conditions.

Alongside this, Farm Africa has introduced technology to turn areas from dryland

into productive farmland. The charity has been installing motorised water pumps and solarpowered irrigation systems and training local entrepreneurs on how to use and maintain them.

“Joining the project was a new life experience. The training I received made me a farmer,” commented Mohammed, who moved to the Hilaweyn refugee camp after war pushed him to leave his home in Somali.

In Somalia, Mohammed had made his income by selling construction wood, but since fleeing with his family he had struggled to find work in Ethiopia.

For years his

family survived on food aid, but thanks to Farm Africa’s project he has become a farmer and an active member of a crop producers’ cooperative.

CHANGE

“With the support I got, I could change my life. In our house, I built a toilet.

“My family didn’t have a toilet. Also, we now have goats; we were able to have all these because the project helped us secure our own income,” said Mohammed.

A key element of the project is not only boosting incomes and food security in the region, but bringing host and refugee communities together.

Members from both communities have been forming cooperatives together, which has not only enabled farmers to earn more through pooling resources and selling crops in bulk, but has also built connections, creating an environment where farmers can share their skills and experiences.

The more I work on this project, the more I see that all participants have the same goals for their families “The more I work on this project, the more I see that all participants have the same goals – to provide a safe place for their families to live without fear; and to be able to afford food clothes, healthcare and education for their children,” commented Getachew.

THRIVING

“Never has this been truer than for the people of Dollo Ado. Here, with Farm Africa’s support, two communities

have gone from merely living amongst one another, to thriving together.”

International charity Farm Africa empowers farmers across eastern Africa to grow more, sell more and sell for more in order to build a brighter future for their families.

You can donate and help Farm Africa’s work at farmafrica.org/stronger together.

Farm Africa is a leading international development charity that reduces poverty by unleashing the ability of farmers across

eastern Africa to grow more,

sell more and sell for more. It

applies practical approaches to development, providing inputs, tools and expertise to enable

farmers to double or triple their

yields. Farm Africa helps farmers to become more resilient to the effects of climate change and

to access markets so they can

increase their income and build sustainable businesses.

26 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

News feature

Bob Marley’s death: 40 years on

THE LEGEND THAT WILL Bob Marley was just 36 when he lost his battle with cancer.

Dotun Adebayo reflects on the reggae pioneer’s influence which can still be felt to this day – 40 years after his death

I

T SHOULDN’T have come as a surprise to us that the musical king Bob Marley succumbed to the ravages of cancer.

We had known he was ill for some time. Indeed, some unsympathetic media commentators at the time were claiming that cancer is what you get from smoking (reputedly) a pound of ganja every week.

Yet, when the confirmation dropped through my letterbox on the morning of May 12, 1981, that Marley had died the night before from some form of skin cancer it was still an overwhelming shock for people all over the world.

Was he not a hard man fe dead? As those gunmen had discovered when they burst into his home on Hope Road in New Kingston and ambushed him in the night five-and-ahalf years before?

They shot him but he survived. A hard man fe dead. It didn’t make sense. How could the king of reggae be gone at the age of just 36? He was just getting into his stride. He was just about to be declared the biggest music star the world had ever known.

His Babylon By Bus tour was just about to become the biggest grossing concert series of all time. With Bob gone and the world mourning, who was going to nice up the dance?

REGGAE KING BOB M A R L E Y DEAD was the (translated) headline Dagens in Nyheter, the Swedish daily paper that was delivered to me that

How could the king of reggae be gone at the age of 36? morning of the 12th. It was the bad news that no one wanted to hear.

It was a moment of such magnitude that you needed to hold someone tight for reassurance that everything was going to be all right. I woke my girl up and told her the news.

Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing is going to be all right.

But it didn’t feel that way.

There was an emptiness, a void, that still today, 40 years on, has not been filled.

I last saw Marley on June 17, 1980, when he performed to a record-breaking crowd at the Stockholm fairground, Grona Lund. It was at more than c a p a c i t y.

37,000 of us were somehow able to squeeze ourselves into the

ICONIC: Bob Marley performing on stage at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park in 1977 (photo: Vincent McEvoy/Redferns) 30,000-capacity open air venue. Another 10,000 fans were outside unable to push themselves through the turnstiles.

First come, first served.

Marley’s true disciples had got there early in the afternoon, to ensure we were right up front where we could see every aspect, including what colour socks the reggae king was wearing.

PHENOMENON

Red, green and gold was the order of the day whether you were from Sweden, or you were a Palestinian or an Eritrean refugee living in Sweden. We were there to commune with the greatest musical phenomenon the world had ever known.

We knew that, but at the time Marley was still been regarded in the mainstream press as something of a “third world” superstar.

None of us could have imagined that this would be the last time we would see him perform. Having said that, it was an amazing concert. The Wailers

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were the best band in the world in 1980 and they showed that.

Bassie Aston ‘Family Man’ Barratt and his drummy brother Carlton ‘Carly’ Barrett, the original ‘riddim twins’ sounded like they were on fire. Al Anderson and Junior Murvin on guitars were just teasing with us. Ty-

acoustic guitar and gave us our first taste of Redemption Song, the new song that he had written and, in hindsight, was more like a reluctant goodbye note. We fell silent, not knowing what to make of it. We had never seen Marley solo on stage. Won’t you help to sing

We fell silent, not knowing what to make of it. We had never seen Marley solo on stage rone Downie on keyboards gave us a masterclass in reggae syncopation and the I-threes were, well, as usual, magnificent. But it was the main attraction that we were there for and as he sashayed on stage with a twostep to the rhythms of Lively Up Yourself we were mesmerised by the man and his music.

Perhaps Bob knew that this would be his last time in this part of the world. When the band walked off stage half way through the performance we were bemused. And then Bob returned to the stage with an

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these songs of freedom...but we couldn’t. As it was a new song we didn’t know the words. So we listened. In deathly silence.

I heard a pin drop.

Two months later we got the news that Marley was being treated for cancer. We all wished him well. A speedy recovery. We expected it.

According to the Jamaican Gleaner’s news report in the week that he finally succumbed eight or nine months later, he died at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami on Monday May 11. He was on

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his way home from Europe to receive the highest Jamaican distinction the Order of Merit, which the JA government had bestowed upon him a month earlier.

By now, Bob knew he wasn’t going to make it. He wanted to die in his homeland. Sadly, he never reached there because the medication he needed on a daily basis was hard to come by in Jamaica and so, the by-now frail superstar had to do a stopover in Florida. It was now clear to all that the six months he had spent at the clinic of the ‘mad’ Doctor, Josef Issels, in Bavaria had not resulted in anything but a hefty medical bill. In response to the doubters, Marley said in an exclusive interview: “I was given up (by all the other doctors) to die.”

Whilst Marley’s faith in the controversial and much dismissed methods of Dr Issel was ultimately misplaced, by April 1981 conspiracy theories were abound about how Marley had been poisoned by the CIA for being too black and too strong.

Theories that remain unproven

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MAY 2021 THE VOICE | 27

News feature

NEVER BE FORGOTTEN but still circulate today. If Marley’s life and death were phenomenal, what happened next was out of this world.

Firstly, Jamaica came to a standstill. For the several days of mourning before Marley was buried in his beloved childhood home in St Ann’s, Jamaicans were not in the mood to continue business as normal. Then Prime Minister Edward Seaga recognised this and cancelled the business of state. In the days that followed there was little else but Marley on the national radio stations JBC and RJR. Jamaica and Jamaicans were in deep contemplation about life, the universe and, inevitably, death.

And yet there was a ‘carnival’ atmosphere, a particularly Jamaican brand of stoicism. “Tomorrow is not promised to any man,” one rastaman declared loudly to anyone who had ears to hear amongst the crowds gathered at the park on Parade in the Coronation Market area of downtown Kingston.

In this mood, government and schools couldn’t run but with so many people on the streets who needed to be fed, watered and needed to buy a poster of the reggae king to indicate where their head was at, the higglers made a killing.

Then came the funeral itself.

It was supposed to be an Ethiopian orthodox rasta funeral but the Twelve Tribes were also prominent with their red, green and gold ‘banners’/tams in abundance below the images of Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie.

Ultimately, a million people, half of the Jamaican popu-

Jamaicans were in deep contemplation about life and death

lation, would turn out to pay their respects.

Some 100,000 queued for hours to file past the coffin in state at the National Arena.

The prime minister grasped the moment and, officially at least, became the main dignitary and eulogy reader. This was not the way that Marley planned it. Trenchtown Rock, One Love, No Woman No Cry and Rastaman Vibration, Mr Seaga said, were the four tracks that defined Marley’s life.

PROUD

Marley’s sons Ziggy and Stephen stole the show with a display of Marley’s trance-like dancing that would have made their father, lying in the bronze coffin a few feet away with his favourite guitar, a Bible and a spliff, immensely proud.

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this death was far from being the end of the Marley story or dynasty.

The Wailers performed the music of their mentor, but their hearts were not really in it. They were a band in shock, wondering what to do now.

The I-Threes, the female trio of Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths and Marley’s widow, Rita, who had accompanied the group at every gig since Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer had departed his company, also performed the poignant rasta hymn Rastaman Chant, that goes Fly away home to Zion, fly away home, one bright morning when my work is over, I will fly away home...

But the I-Threes without Bob, The Wailers without Bob, only served as a poignant reminder of the enormity of this loss to the world.

Then the cortege drove the coffin the 36 miles to its last resting place, the small hamlet of Nine Mile, where

REMEMBERED: A mural shows reggae legend Bob Marley and his family in the grounds of the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston, Jamaica.; below left, Marley’s Babylon By Bus tour was just about to become the biggest grossing concert series of all time Marley started out life in humble circumstances and where he would be buried, in humble circumstances. Tell that to the crowds who lined the streets the entire distance to say farewell

21 1981 at Nine Mile, the village where, 36 years earlier, he had been born. His heavy bronze coffin was carried to the top of the highest hill in the village and placed in a tempo-

Nothing like it had ever been seen in Jamaica or will ever be seen again to the people’s musical champion.

Nothing like it had ever been seen in Jamaica or will ever be seen again. Jamaicans united in grief and united in paying respects. Sometimes the cortege had to slow down to a crawl so congested was its route with people. When it made head way it was accompanied by motorcycle outriders, cyclists and children as well as adults running alongside it until their breath ran out. It didn’t reach its destination where the king of reggae, if not the king of music would be laid to rest, until mid-afternoon.

They buried Marley on May

rary mausoleum painted in the colours of red, green and gold.

No sooner was Marley laid to rest than the recriminations began. Some say that it started that very evening when members of The Wailers started complaining that they hadn’t been paid.

It soon emerged that Marley, ever the anti-establishment rebel, had left his affairs in a less than orthodox way. He had died intestate – without a will (rastas didn’t believe in them). Apparently, until this very public death, many rastas didn’t believe they would ever die). Which meant, according to Jamaican law, Rita and what

turned out to be 11 children by various women that Marley had fathered, were now the beneficiaries of what I estimated, when The Voice asked me to calculate, a £5 million fortune (the equivalent of approx £20 million in today’s terms).

QUEUE

It was pay day for some but not for others. A long line of ‘Marley children’ joined the queue of those who claimed that the superstar was their father, one or two of whom, as dub poet Mutabaruka pointed out when they called his late night radio phone-in, were even older than Marley himself.

But The Wailers’ complaint was legitimate. They didn’t have anything written down on paper (rasta don’t work for no CIA). It was a rasta thing, a bredrin thing. Marley’s arrangement with them was that he would take 50 per cent of everything and hand over 50 per cent of everything for them to share amongst themselves.

But, of course, for the last nine months there had been nothing

to share between them and, according to Family Man Barratt, he himself had at the time, “forty-something pickney” to feed.

Rita was having none of it.

She had become the ‘kingmaker’ of Marley’s estate. And she had a beef with Family Man and various other members of The Wailers.

I interviewed her in Stockholm a few months later with the Swedish journalist Bengt Eriksson and she insisted that there was no money owed or forthcoming.

Marley’s manager Don Taylor spoke to me some weeks after that, claiming that Bob had once said to him ‘Rita can write my signature better than me’.

Rita would later be accused of using forged documents to divert millions of dollars from the estate as the value of Marley’s music catalogue soared way past that of Elvis Presley and every other dead artist.

And still today the value continues increasing, 40 years after his death to make Marley, the most valuable musician that ever lived.

28 | THE VOICE

MAY 2021

Faith

WE ALL FACE A JOURNEY TO CHRIST Travelling from one place to another, taking on new experiences and meeting different types of people can be part of God’s plan for us, but our identities and our backgrounds are still important, says Rev John Root

‘Y

OU KNOW the heart of the stranger’ is one of the most haunting verses in the Bible (Exodus 23, verse 9).

God says it to the Israelites to remind them that even when settled in the Promised Land, their roots lie in their history of enslavement in Egypt.

Being a stranger, then, is written into their history, their hearts, their very DNA. How could they not then be hospitable to immigrants who had come to live in their land?

Another intriguing Bible verse captures their vision for life in the Promised Land, to “sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees” (Micah 4, verse 4).

POWERFUL

To modern city dwellers, that just sounds quaint, but it has a powerful political meaning.

God’s aim is that the people should have the right to their own home, and the means to put food on the table — even wine and figs!

That is at odds with our society where so many people have to rely on food banks, or where the scandalous shortage of housing means people can never have a secure home.

The Church of England has recently produced a challenge to the government over housing policy that addresses the issue.

With the forthcoming local and mayoral elections, candidates should be quizzed about how they intend to address such basic questions of justice.

For the Israelites, these basic rights of a home and a piece of land to work gave them dignity and a settled sense of identity.

Today, as homes and work have become more precarious and uncertain, and hopes for change disillusioned, ‘identity’

We are right to value our families, our background culture, the places we or our forefathers come from

heart as he prays for their salvation.

So, too, we are right to value our families, our background culture, the places we or our forefathers come from.

My family moved to London from Merseyside when I was eight, and I have lived here virtually all my life since. But nothing will stop me supporting Liverpool!

People naturally support the West Indian or Pakistani or Indian cricket teams if that’s where our family roots are. Familiar music, food and accents and identity politics have come warm our hearts.

But Paul didn’t stay locked up to the fore. The Jews were secure in their identity as the people of in his own culture.

God. The fluidity, insecurity and unfairness of modern life now His faith in Christ drew him make people more intense about into a wider world. In order to defining their identity — in serve God in that world, he had to cross cultural boundaries, to terms of race and ethnicity, genlearn to identify with people der, sexuality, social background whose life experience was very or whatever. different.

In today’s focus on identity, it “I become all things to all is worth looking back to St Paul. people” he says (1 Corinthians Like us, he lived surrounded by 9:22), so that he can share his people of different cultures, lan- faith with them. guages and religions.

One of the privileges of livHe began his evangelistic ing among people of different travels in Syria, met simple cultures is that we adapt, and peasants in what is now Turkey, learn and borrow from them. and sophisticated Greek intellec- “Appropriating”, when it is done tuals in Athens. respectfully, helps us grow as His life probably ended after a people. We are enriched as we time in prison in Rome, the cap- develop multiple identities. ital of a cruel and vast empire. In But sooner or later, when we this flux, his basic identity was mix with people of different that he was “in Christ”; but he cultures our shins get banged. also had to work out his ethnic There can be things about us identity as a Jew. that get up the nose of other How he handles that, I be- people. lieve, gives us a guide to how we Maybe some of the things that understand our ethnic or racial we have learned to value or do identity in an even more mixed, are just wrong or arrogant. cosmopolitan world.

Paul discovered that much as First of all, he had a strong he cherished his Jewish identity emotional commitment to “my in some ways, yet there were brothers, those of my own race, other ways in which he had the people of Israel” (Romans to abandon what he had been 9:3). You can feel the tug on his taught to be proud of.

SERVE

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LINKS: Dr John Root moved away from Liverpool as a child, but still supports the Reds Pride in his family background, his religious zeal, his achievements had prevented him relying completely on Christ (Philippians 3, verse 7).

They had to be thrown away like rubbish. It can be painful step-

that, unlike other holy books, you really need maps as you read the Bible. Because so often it is about people on the move.

It is about people who are immigrants, exiles, refugees. From Abraham to Paul it is about

The sociologist Stuart Hall, of Guyanese background, wrote of his “experience of being inside and outside. Increasingly it is what everybody’s life is like”.

Feeling that experience lies behind the worldwide appeal of blues and reggae.

Here in Britain we may or may not feel we are strangers, but the heart of the Christian faith says that, however physically settled some people may feel, we are all people who make journeys, who strangers here.

Our final home and destiny is learn about God ‘on the road’. to travel with Jesus into God’s It is no coincidence that the word we use today to refer to everlasting presence. groups who have settled in new countries, ‘diaspora’ or ‘scat- John Root blogs on matters of tered’, comes from the New Tes- race and faith in ‘Out of Many, One People’. It can be actament.

There it refers to all Christians cessed at johnroot@substack.

— we are all on the move, look- com. His most recent blog is a ing to our real home with Christ. review of the Sewell Report.

It refers to all Christians – we are all on the move, looking to our real home with Christ ping away from elements of our own culture, when we see they are not helpful and need critiquing.

As Paul made his journeys around the Roman Empire amongst a rich variety of ethnicities and cultures, he had to work through what to keep and what to leave behind from his Jewish identity. The upshot is

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MAY 2021

THE VOICE | 29

Education Continued from page 17

If we actually knew why these young people were being excluded, not only would these debates be more fully informed but, we hazard, there might be far more public outcry and rallying around these young people and against the structures and standards that police them.

School exclusion functions as part of a wider system of disciplining, surveilling and policing already marginalised young people and communities of colour, targeting black children and boys in particular. The pandemic has rendered these problems particularly acute.

Children who’ve been exposed to structural racism, poverty, trauma and instability during lockdown are more likely to have difficulties returning to school and are therefore more likely to be removed from classrooms, deprived of education or expelled from school yet again.

We have a sense of all of this from the experience and testimony of those who have been affected. Yet, published data – that is required and approved by the Government – does not allow us to see the multiple, complex and intersecting ways in which pupils are affected

Such concerns seem reserved for a select group of children by exclusions. Nor does it tell us who is most likely to be affected, or why school exclusions have come to be seen as an acceptable, let alone necessary, form of ‘behaviour management’ at all.

All children have the right to an education A year on from Boris Johnson’s original announcement, the school gates have reopened again and most – but not all – pupils are back in full-time education. For the second time in a mere 12 months, children have returned to school following national lockdown, ready to see their friends and ‘catch up’ on lost time and learning.

As in September 2020, the media and general public have been concerned about lost learning time, and the impact of months of social isolation.

Yet, once again, such concerns seem reserved for a select group of children – children for whom

being sent home or denied entrance to school was never on the cards before the pandemic, and remains unlikely in its aftermath. The impacts of the pandemic for children and young people are sure to be long-lasting and compounding, especially for those with complex, intersecting needs and other vulnerabilities.

Critical conversations about free school meals and learning loss during lockdown cannot just include children we consider deserving of consistent education and nutritional provision, but must question why we consider losing these fundamental rights a just punishment at all.

When a global pandemic robs all young people of their school life, there is outrage. But when a young person is permanently excluded, potentially for a reason classed as simply ‘other’, it is presumed that lost schooling – and a well-known trajectory thereafter – is fair.

Exclusion is never just and certainly not when used, as NME’s latest research suggests, to immediately and aggressively manage disadvantaged young people as they try to recover and reclaim their lives and education following months of isolation, fear, insecurity and loss.

TARGETED: Class- and race-based discrimination can be disguised within schools’ decisions to justify a reason for excluding a disadvantaged child as ‘other’

Belly Mujinga’s family starts crowdfunder to support legal costs as fight continues

W

HILE THE outcome of the trial of the white police officer who murdered George Floyd was revealed in the United States, the death of a black female frontline worker in the UK, Belly Mujinga, remained unaddressed.

While both names were the focus of the #blacklivesmatter movement in the US and in the UK respectively, Ms Mujinga’s family have not been provided with the name of the white male who – the family claims – assaulted her on two occasions.

TRAGIC: Belly Mujinga, pictured here with husband Lusamba, Katalay, died after allegedly being spat on while working on the station concourse at London Victoria station last year and subsequently catching COVID-19

COMPLAINT

They say that the British Transport Police (BTP) are protecting the white male who assaulted her and her colleague, Motolani Sunmola, on March 21, 2021. A complaint about the BTP has been raised to the IOPC by the family.

The family believe that they will probably need to go to court to force the BTP to release the name of the perpetrator to them to sue him in the civil courts and also to consider

a private prosecution. The Coroner’s decision on whether or not to hold an inquest will also be received shortly, and if positive the family will need to prepare for that inquest, attend it and take statements and gather evidence in support of their position.

The family are also to bring other legal claims related to Ms Mujinga’s

tragic death and have now begun crowdfunding to that end.

The family hopes to create a litigation fund to cover forthcoming court costs, legal fees, expert fees and translator’s fees.

Lawrence Davies, the family’s lawyer, stated: “Obtaining justice for Belly is not only the right thing to do but it

will help all frontline workers who have disproportionately suffered during this pandemic and all BAME workers targeted for racism at work.

We hope that you will support the fundraising for the justice for Belly campaign.”

He added: “Belly’s death, like that of George Floyd, has caused a lot of

people to reflect on their lives and to acknowledge the growing racism in our midst, and see how little real progress has been made on racial equality.

“Racial harassment at work has doubled since 2017 and the BAME pay gap stands at £300 billion and rising”.

EQUALITY

“So although some people have been rejoicing that the Floyd family received a measure of justice with the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the reality is that racial equality is not achieved when a racist white cop is convicted, but begins when a black person is not killed in the first place.

It is achieved when all black people are from birth able to live a life free of racial discrimination.”

To support the Justice for Belly campaign the crowdfunding page is at CrowdJustice: https://www.crowd justice.com/case/justice-for-bellymujinga/

30 | THE VOICE

MAY 2021

News feature ‘HELPLESS’: Ceewhy Ochoga and Osaro Otobo are calling on institutions to step up and support their campaign for much-needed change within higher education

‘LET US BE LEADERS’

F

IGHTING FOR student rights and racial equality is so important to us. From our personal experiences, anecdotes we’ve heard and well-documented incidents, we know that racism still exists in higher education.

We have grown weary of empty statements of support and solidarity.

The blatant silence from some higher education institutions (HEIs) on the topic of racism is also telling.

We were both the first Black Student Union (SU) Presidents in our SUs. Ceewhy was the first black president at Salford SU and Osaro was the first black woman to be president and the first black two-term president at Hull University Students’ Union. Representation matters!

Our identity meant we could do and see things that many people who came before us could not. However, those characteristics also meant that we were subjected to racism and discrimination that others were not. We experienced racism

Race Equality Now campaigners Ceewhy Ochoga and Osaro Otobo both say they occupied senior positions on their university campuses and were still sidelined – and they are striving for change

from colleagues and students – both verbally and physically.

A seat at the table People and organisations often talk about valuing diversity.

Sadly, when the time comes to take meaningful action against racism, these same organisations hesitate, delay and eventually drop the ball.

There is often a strong element of wilful complacency when dealing with these matters. Both of us have raised race issues to people in university senior leadership positions and watched them avoid taking full responsibility – although they have a legal obligation under Section 22 of the 1994 Education Act. This can be devastating for the person on the receiving end.

Not only can it impact your mental and physical health, it

can leave you feeling that your lived experiences are invalid.

It can make you feel that you don’t matter, because you are unprotected in the university space. This is how we have

The current system is just not working for students and staff.

Race Equality Now It shouldn’t be this way, especially given that many univer-

We have heard from many students about their experience of racism. The current system is not working felt in the past, and we are still dealing with the effects of our experiences.

We’ve felt so helpless at times. We both occupied senior positions on our campuses, and yet we were sidelined.

This left us unable to protect other students and ourselves from racism.

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sities have signed up to the Race Equality Charter to show their commitment to tackling racism. Many of those same universities posted black squares following Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020. However, very little has changed nearly one year on.

As part of our Race Equality

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Now campaign, we have heard from many students about their experience of racism in the pandemic. The current system is just not working for students and staff.

Drastic change is needed now What we want to see following our campaign is decisive action. We believe it is vitally important to construct a strategic political agenda to press home the need for radical and urgent changes to improve the experiences of black students and staff.

The changes we seek will challenge racism and tackle inequality in higher education institutions across the country.

It is our contribution to changing the narrative and being the catalysts and agents of change.

To press home our demands,

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we have made several attempts to contact Advance HE (Higher Education), who are custodians of the Race Equality Charter.

They have met up with us once.

Though they have been less than enthusiastic, we have continued to press them to collaborate with us. We have asked the necessary questions, and we are yet to receive adequate responses, they have however set up a Race Equality Charter Governance Committee, which is a strong step in the right direction.

As we launch stage two of the campaign, we have received support from national organisations such as the National Union of Students (NUS), Operation Black Vote (OBV) and other black organisations. We believe that this issue should be a top priority for the government and have written to prime minister with support from black organisations.

We are calling on more higher education institutions and organisations to step up, support this campaign and tackle this issue alongside us.

www.voice-online.co.uk

MAY 2021 THE VOICE | 31

News

100 Black Men of London

Two teenagers share how a mentoring programme for aspiring black youth has changed their lives BRINGING THE COMMUNITY TOGETHER: 100 Black Men of London aims to inspire youngsters and young leaders in the capital to be the best version of themselves

By Leah Mahon

A

COMMUNITY ORGANISATION that has won awards for its mentorship programme for black children and teenagers has recently celebrated its 20th anniversary of providing support and inspiring a new generation of black youth.

100 Black Men was born in the United States during the post-civil rights era when black men desperately needed to find purpose and belonging.

Now the programme has up to 150 breakthrough chapters around the world, including in London since 2001.

The Vice-President of Operations of 100 Black Men of London, Michael Sode, describes the life-changing programme as a set up divided into teams that run a variety of mentoring schemes in teacher-led workshops.

“All four of our pillars - economic empowerment, education, mentoring, health and wellbeing - are underpinned by leadership.

“We want to be leaders of our community, leaders of the society and of the world while rewarding our mentees progress,” he explained.

The programme has recently announced their business and investment workshops after a successful six-year pilot. They hope to equip aspiring entre-

preneurs and business owners with the skills to compete with mainstream competitors on the wider market.

“We’ve got to the stage where people know how to build wealth,” added Michael.

“But what we don’t know how to do is how to build wealth as a unit and how to be intentional about something, how to have something like the black Wall Street that was in Tulsa.”

designed for black people”.

19-year-old Jonas-Andrew Phillip joined the 100 Black Men of London programme just before his 15th birthday and relates first-hand to this struggle.

“I got suspended from school various times. There was once a time when a white student did something before and I did it a week after for instance.

“And to this day, I think as white people, when they disagree it’s labelled as your passionate and intelligent, you have an activist mentality, but

because I always wanted to show people that I’m not this bad black child. In 2017, I won the programme’s Diamond of the Year and finished my GCSEs. It’s been an honour and a pleasure for me,” he said.

19-year-old Vanes Creavelle from Newham echoes the same sentiments. The programme also instilled a sense of value and self-confidence in her.

However, her participation in the programme began very differently.

“I started when I was 8 years

A system that wasn’t necessarily designed for black people BRIGHT FUTURES

The workshops have gone from strength to strength, helping thousands of young black teenagers and adults as they build life skills and make important career decisions.

Despite its widely known title, 100 Black Men has evolved to become a place for girls and young women. Young women can receive mental health guidance and support on how to interact with teachers in “a system that wasn’t necessarily

with the black kids, it was we are rude and rebellious,” said Jonas.

It was Jonas’ mother that saw the toll that school life was taking on her young son and sent him to 100 Black Men of London.

Although reluctant, spending his first day on the programme “in the corner with his hoodie up” he was taken under the wing of the president at the time, who encouraged a young Jonas to engage.

“I put 100% in every session

old because my dad was a mentor and he used to take me along to the sessions,” she said.

“I wasn’t able to start till I was 10 years old, but before that their sessions were always really interactive - they taught how to interact with the police, how to avoid peer pressure – so as an eight-year-old, I was really enthusiastic to get involved with that.”

In 2011, Vanes was awarded the Diamond of the Year and said that it was the sense of family and the “strong, irre-

placeable” relationship she built with her mentors that saw her through the programme.

FUTURE GROWTH

Both Vanes and Jonas say that the effective leadership and communication skills they learned during the programme will serve them in adulthood.

Now, 100 Black Men of London have plans to reach and inspire even more black youth, and are fundraising.

“Everything we’ve been doing has been funded by our members who pay a £20 leadership fee every month,” said Michael.

“Our men of the organisation do this because it’s 100 Black Men of London and they take the lead in this, and the women are volunteers. That’s how we’ve been surviving and so we are very limited to what we can and can’t do with events.”

They want a decent space of their own, as the programme has grown and more young people than ever have shown interest in becoming mentees.

To do this, they hope to raise £200,000.

“Our vision is for the 100 to be a hub for the community for young people to go to as a safe haven,” Michael added.

“Our goal is clear - we want to raise the self-esteem and aspirations of young black people in London.

“We aim to provide an opportunity for every black child in this city who wants or needs a mentor to have one that is trained and qualified by the 100 Black Men of London. ‘’To achieve this goal requires effort from the whole community and therefore we need your support,” said Michael. “‘The ‘ Build our Community’ campaign embodies the vision of the organisation - What They See is What They Will Be’” In addition, Michael is really proud of their health and wellness workshops that take place the last Thursday of every month.

“These workshops are designed to help raise awareness of some key health issues such as prostate cancer, sickle cell disease and mental health challenges, but they also help our people find solutions and introduce our community to experts in the field.

“We’ve all seen the film Black Panther and Wakanda started with one building, and the rest of it was built around that.

There’s nothing to say we can’t do that too.”

To donate to the 100 Black Men of London mentorship programme, visit GoFundMe To donate to the 100 Black Men of London mentorship programme, visit GoFundMe

32 | THE VOICE

MAY 2021

News feature

‘I’m taking action for sickle cell sufferers’ Mother of young sickle cell sufferer Elijah, Funmi Ullam, says it is so painfully clear that families impacted by the disease need more resources and support – so she’s taking things into her own hands

“D

ON’T WORRY, you have at least six months with your son before he begins to exhibit the symptoms of sickle cell.” Those were the words a haematology specialist said to me.

My head was reeling. It felt as if someone had opened a trap door and I had fallen in.

I was a new mum. My baby boy Elijah was two weeks old and we had been given the diagnosis of a chronic condition.

The first thing I did was tap into my faith and pray.

When my son was three, he experienced his first sickle cell crisis. My partner and I found ourselves admitted to the paediatric ward, watching our son’s little body riddled with pain. I remember having three sleepless nights because Elijah was unable to lie on a bed, so I held him to try and comfort him.

With a medical team, we had to work out the right combination of interventions to help bring my son’s pain under control.

I’ve decided to take action – I set up my charity to fund critical research and support Nine years later, my family have experienced the worst of this condition. It affects every area of our lives and alongside the unpredictability of the COVID-19 crisis, we try to navigate normal life, work, education and hospital care.

CAUSES

Along the way, we’ve learned how to target the root causes of this condition, and I’m glad to say that Elijah is now in less pain, and doesn’t visit the hospital as much – though we still have to manage frequent

low-level pain at home. Still, it is so painfully clear to me that families impacted by sickle cell need more resources, research and support.

Just last month Richard Okorogheye, a 19-year-old with sickle cell, was tragically found dead in Epping Forest. He had been shielding due to his condition, and it has been reported that he’d been struggling with his mental health.

Evan Smith was only 21. He died on April 25, 2019 at North Middlesex Hospital, north London, after he developed sepsis.

The inquest into his death found he would not have died if medics had offered him a blood transfusion sooner.

Sickle cell is one of the most common genetic conditions in the world, but it is especially common among people of African descent. I can’t help but wonder if that’s why there just isn’t enough support for families like mine.

Now, I’ve decided to take action by setting up my charity to fund critical research and provide support. We launched

by providing COVID-19 care packages to families who are affected by sickle cell.

We do things like introduce parents to holistic therapies to improve their wellbeing, and we hope to provide vital services like hospital kit bags, winter boxes and access to wellness bootcamps.

HOPE

At the moment, we’re also crowdfunding for an app to track pain and other key metrics of those with sickle cell disease. Digital healthcare can empower both patients and clinicians, because it means medical professionals can see crucial data.

My hope is the app will help people with sickle cell, like my son receive better support and treatment.

Through the charity, I’d like to create a community of families, and improve the current system of fragmented care.

Vanessa Kesu started Crescent Kids to provide vital support to children and families impacted by sickle cell and thalassaemia.

DOING WHAT’S RIGHT: Funmi Ullam with son Elijah, who is hoping that families affected by sickle cell can be cared for

London barbershops trained to test blood pressure in first-ever UK project

By Leah Mahon LONDON SOUTH Bank University (LSBU) has announced a new project to train barbers in measuring and giving advice about blood pressure to their customers.

The initiative is the first of its kind in the UK. Eight barbershops based in Croydon have already undergone training to provide on-the-spot blood pressure checks and provide health information.

The London barbershop blood pressure testing project takes inspiration from a successful US health study in Los Angeles barbershops in 2018 resulting in 68 per cent of those with high blood pressure ending the study with healthy blood pressure levels. In the UK, around 30 per cent of men

have high blood pressure and around half are undiagnosed or receiving treatment.

High blood pressure remains the third biggest cause of disease throughout the country, which can lead to kidney disease, vascular dementia and mobility problems – costing the NHS £2 billion every year.

ONE-STOP SHOP: Barbers in Croydon will be the first to offer blood pressure checks as well as fresh trims for their customers

TARGET

The London barbershop project will target black and Asian men who are more likely to have high blood pressure and less likely to be diagnosed than the general population.

Nicola Thomas, LSBU Professor of Kidney Care and barbershop project lead, said: “For the first time in the UK, barbers will offer testing to their customers to find out if they have

high blood pressure and then give advice about how to reduce it.

“Sadly, millions of adults in the UK have high blood pressure and half are undiagnosed which can lead to strokes or heart attacks.

“Our Croydon barbershop project aims to understand if we can run a

@thevoicenewspaper

similar project to the one in Los Angeles. It is the trusting relationship that customers have with their barbers that is so important – we need to take healthcare out into the community.”

The project is being run in partnership with two Croydon-based organi-

@thevoicenews

voicenews

sations, called Croydon BME Forum and Off The Record.

Some of the barbershops providing the service across London will be Finishing Touches in Mitcham, Yian the Barber in South Norwood and Cutter Hair Doctor based in South Norwood.

SILENT

Hugh Benain from Finishing Touches barbershop, said: “It’s great to be taking part in this important project to tackle high blood pressure in the community. We’ll be offering our customers on-the-spot blood pressure tests and health information for them to take away.

“High blood pressure is a silent killer and providing tests and information from our barbershop could save lives.”

www.voice-online.co.uk

FEBRUARY 2021

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Financial Institutions

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Merchants

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THE VOICE| 33

s n o i t a l Congratu

55

Years

Grandfather Herman Drummond

Son Errol Drummond

Grandson Daniel Drummond

Sunrise Bakery Celebrates 55 Years of Giving the Caribbean Community a “Taste of Home” Sunrise Bakery is one of the UK’s oldest family-run Caribbean craft bakeries. Established in 1966 in Smethwick, Birmingham, the Founders, Herman Drummond and William Lamont, opened their own business to the local Caribbean residents offering “A taste of home”.

Three generations on, the bakery has become one of the largest supplier of Caribbean hard dough bread, cakes, and Jamaican spiced buns in the UK, producing over two million products annually across 300 stores, including Asda, Sainsburys, Tesco, and Morrisons.

Sunrise Bakery is now run by Herman’s son, Errol Drummond, and grandson, Daniel Drummond. Errol believes that at the heart of the bakery’s success is the business’ commitment to supporting the local and wider community in the UK and in the Caribbean.

“Since my dad first opened the bakery 55 year ago, we have strived to make our products the gold standard of Caribbean baking.

We recognise that our anniversary wouldn’t be possible without our customers, and that’s why we have always given back by supporting social initiatives that aim to empower our communities.”

Daniel, the bakery’s sales and marketing manager, added, “throughout the next month, we’ll also be delivering our tropical cakes to the African-Caribbean charities that have supported the elderly throughout the pandemic.”

As part of their 55th anniversary celebration, Sunrise Bakery will be launching a new range of vegan cakes and a luxury boxed bun later this year. And as an ongoing effort to keep their products available to customers, the bakery will soon be launching an online store at www.sunrisebakery.co.uk

Let us keep supporting them!

Lifestyle Suzann McClean talks Peckham’s finest p36

Mark Grey on his phenomenal stage and screen career so far p38

Time to get black on your bike

BUBR 2021

Fiona Pacquette is spreading her classical vibe p44

36 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

Lifestyle

Stage

Theatre offers a perfect stage for talent to shine CEO Suzann McLean on why Theatre Peckham has so much to offer the arts industry in the UK

BY SUZANN MCLEAN

D

URING THE pandemic with theatre doors closed, the industry had the opportunity to reimagine its future.

I am hoping it seeks to rebuild structures that stifle diverse talent and re-centre the voices it has been complicit in silencing.

The ethnically diverse shortlists and wins at this year’s Bafta Awards suggest the art industry’s vision and mine might finally be aligned, especially with the win of my student Bukky Bakray, pictured inset. The 18-year-old from Hackney took home the EE Rising Star Award.

She won for her breakout role in the feature film Rocks, an authentic British story exploring black and brown girlhood. Its cast and crew were 75 per cent female which clearly brought different creative energy to the project that was rightfully rewarded.

It was Bakray’s first professional acting role, and she was absolutely captivating on screen.

She is perfecting her craft on the Young and Talented Originate Actor Training course at Theatre Peckham, where I am the CEO & Artistic Director.

We provide a safe space where Bakray can further develop her talent and be supported in a culturally specific way. Theatre Peckham did this for John Boyega, between the ages of nine to 19. He went on to star in the Star Wars series, one of the highest grossing movies of all time. The Originate Actor Training course is free, and this

“Being a youthful and diverse organisation helps us stay fresh and energised” is possible because of our partnerships with RADA and Guildhall School of Music and funding from Arts Council England.

CRITERIA

It is highly selective, last year we had almost 100 audition for 18 places.

We have specific criteria that considers the applicants’ social and economic disadvantage, their ethnicity, disability status and if they have been in care.

Applications will be open for entry into the Originate 2022 class at the end of April.

At Theatre Peckham, I have created a culture of possibilities, a space where all voices are heard.

Our process is collaborative and honours our intersectionality. It ensures the attitudes that enforce creative hierarchies that align with racial and class hierarchies are far less likely to infect our creative output.

Being a youthful and diverse organisation helps us stay fresh and energised. Sixty-five percent of my staff are under 25, most of my team identify as female and black and brown people make up 57 per cent of our team.

At Theatre Peckham, we are aware of the specific challenges working class and black and ethnically diverse students face.

Therefore, we know what cultural and institutional knowledge to impart to help them better navigate their careers.

Bakray and Boyega are evidence of why community-based grassroots organisations are necessary, but they are not the only stars. I have developed the talent of Asha Hassan since 2017 who starred alongside Bakray in Rocks.

PRESTIGIOUS

She was the lead in the Offie nominated production of the play Extremism.

Raphel Famotibe, also a Rocks actor after my training, gained entry to RADA, the most prestigious drama school in England.

Jordan Benjamin is about to star in Hairspray in the West End. Milly Zero graduated from Originate’s 2019 class and is now in EastEnders. Bafta winner Reece Buttery starred in the Dumping Ground and Gangsta Granny.

The Originate 2018 class proudly claims Ellis George of Small Axe and Dr Who and Shem Hamilton who also featured in Small Axe, the awardwinning anthology created by Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen.

My method works, we give students the stage, the microphone and the platform to give their story life.

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CIVIC ROLE: Suzann McLean says young people under her guidance are able to make a greater contribution to the arts scene (photo: John Yabrifa) This is the best way to ignite the engine of creative change the industry needs. I’m over

role as agents of cohesion and change. We give some of the most disenfranchised and mar-

“We give students the stage, the microphone and the platform to give their story life” asking for gatekeepers to give us permission to tell our own stories. Young people growing under my leadership are able to make a greater contribution to Britain’s arts scene because they learn to be creators of their own work.

It’s no secret that there are so few roles for black and ethnically diverse and working-class actors.

However, in teaching them the power of their authentic self and the value of their difference, they are empowered to tell their own stories – unapologetically, and this is the highest form of art.

Theatre Peckham is an innovative, creative arts hub but like all community-based organisations we have a civic

@thevoicenews

ginalised young people positive creative avenues of expressions and teach them skills that could help earn them a living.

My efforts to introduce these young people to theatre is converting a whole generation

voicenews

of theatre goers and artistic contributors with an untapped cultural value that cannot be quantified. Bukray and Boyega’s talent represents only the tip of the iceberg. At Theatre Peckham I am proving that the young people we develop not only succeed across the awards but have the business acumen to build sustainable careers in the arts.

Follow Theatre Peckham at @TheatrePeckham on Twitter and Instagram, and @TheatrePeckham1 on Facebook

www.voice-online.co.uk

MAY 2021

THE VOICE | 37

Lifestyle

Events

Get black in the saddle

Following last year’s hugely successful Black Unity Bike Ride, organisers are looking forward to another brilliant event

GETTING INVOLVED: Crowds flocked to get involved in the inaugural Black Unity Bike Ride last August – and organisers hope this year’s event will be even bigger and better

BY JOEL CAMPBELL

L

AST YEAR’S inaugural Black Unity Bike Ride was a roaring success and the organisers have taken heed of the call from participants and those who missed to do another one.

This year’s event will take place on August 7 and will follow the same route from Walthamstow Central in east London down to Brixton, with a few stops to catch your breath along the way.

Founded by Tokunbo Ajasa-Oluwa in July 2020 the BUBR is an alliance of different Black cycling/riding collectives based within the capital. The event was brought about in order to play a role in galvanising the black community in London, promoting peace and unity.

Lifestyle caught up with Ajasa-Oluwa to find out more...

Lifestyle: BUBR was a huge success in 2020. Given the year we all had talk about what that meant for you?

Tokunbo: It was truly inspiring to see how an acorn of an idea

“The ride is not a race – it is 14 miles in total and the pace is leisurely and casual. Some only do one segment” had inspired some many people different from our communities come together and unite on bicycles.

2020 was such an emotionally taxing year, however BUBR20 was a positive disruption to the challenge and has now become a lifelong memory for me.

Since August 1 last year, every time I have either driven or cycled along the BUBR route, I always find myself reminiscing about the amazing atmosphere and the sheer joy that was on the participants’ faces on the day.

L: Tell us some more about what BUBR stands for a year later?

T: A year later BUBR symbolises unity, positivity and holistic well-

being within the black community. COVID-19 has reinforced how important it is for us to prioritise our mental, emotional and physical health. BUBR aims to support more of the black community to do just that.

L: You had some high-profile people attend incognito last year, care to share who they were and who may be attending this year?

T: BUBR is a family bike ride and we had all types of people attending. Some as young as eight and others as old as 68.

We had some high-profile riders attend last year like DJ Spoony and former Metropolitan Police superintendent Leroy Logan.

This year we are expecting many more from the black communities including a spectrum of influential figures, too.

L: This is about more than getting black people to ride their bikes, so share with us what this is a flagship for?

T: BUBR is about symbolising the positivity that can be achieved when we choose to unite in the black community.

We have brought together over 20 different black-led cycling

collectives, such alliance is testament to what else is possible when we remove the silos and work together – hence why we have chosen Black Pound Day to be the day the event will always fall on.

Ultimately BUBR is about providing a joyful experience that feels empowering, all within a safe space where you can be your unapologetic self without judgement.

L: There will be those who want to take part but won’t be sure whether they can make it all the way, outline how the day will go?

T: Any individuals who doubt whether they can make the entire BUBR route are exactly who we want to encourage to partake. The ride is not a race, it is 14 miles in total and the pace is leisurely and casual.

We ride for approximately four to five miles and then take a pitstop break for at least 30 minutes where people can rest and have some refreshments before commencing on to the next check point. Last year we had some people only do one segment of the ride and that’s totally fine, too.

L: Last year as aforementioned

was a huge success, how do you top that?

T: This year we expect to top that by increasing the number of people that take part on Saturday, August 7, 2021 and we have also added additional activations including monthly cycle sessions at the Olympic VeloPark and also monthly virtual wellbeing challenges via our Instagram account.

L: Lifestyle would imagine given the great turnout of thousands last year, sponsors will be chomping at the bit to get involved – how is that going and what would make the perfect partnership?

T: We are currently in negotiations with a few different entities as potential sponsors and hopefully will be making an announcement very soon. The ideal sponsor is an outfit that buys into our values and ethos and recognises the benefit in aspiring the black community to remain active and positively embrace their holistic health.

L: How can people prepare, fitness wise? Will injury reduction measures be ramped up?

T: We would recommend par-

taking in our monthly BUBR virtual wellbeing challenges and also try and get on your bike regularly. If you don’t know how to cycle you can learn via a number of free cycling proficiency projects across the capital.

L: The narrative of the black man, women or family engaging in bike riding is missing from the mainstream agenda, it’s as if the community just don’t do it; we know this isn’t true how will BUBR contribute to changing perceptions?

T: BUBR dispels the myth that Black people do not cycle. By documenting our activations and with the support of some strategic partners we believe we will not only inspire more black people to ride their bikes but also potentially inspire the careers of future Olympic cycling champions from our communities.

L: Last words?

T: You can stay in touch either by signing up to our newsletter eepurl.com/hvgbfD or following us on Instagram @blackunity bikeride We look forward to riding with you on August 7, 2021.

38 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

Lifestyle

Stage

‘Our stories matter’

Mark Grey reflects on his 35 years in film and theatre – and what the future holds...

BY DARELL J PHILIP

T

HE RECOGNITION of black excellence in film has been realised with the likes of Viola Davis, Daniel Kaluuya and the late Chadwick Boseman honoured in the Screen Actors Guild awards, with all three also nominated in this year’s Oscars – and Kaluuya deservedly walked away with the best supporting actor gong following the 93rd Academy Awards which took place in Los Angeles last month.

But closer to home, Britishborn film and theatre producer, Mark Grey, has been nominated in the Best Lead Actor category in this year’s International Christian Film and Music Festival for his leading role in The Convert – a short film exploring the values of truth, purity, forgiveness and faith when a Clergyman tries to convince a prostitute to drop charges against his son accused of sexual assault.

For over 35 years, the multiple award winning producer and writer has been involved in film and theatre and as this year June marks his 60th birthday, Grey’s passion for the arts is as strong as ever.

“Since childhood I have always had a passion for writing,” begins Grey.

“I remember whilst growing up as a teenager in Jamaica I found myself enamoured by the beauty, the sounds and the culture to be found in Jamaica and the people living there which I captured and wrote down in some exercise books I kept.

“My creativity and undying passion for writing and storytelling began there and is something which has continued to the present day.”

“We are seeing that, in a time like this, our stories really do matter, and it’s important that this current trend continues” After graduating from West Indies College (now renamed the Northern Caribbean University) in Mandeville, Jamaica, Grey returned to his place of birth, East Dulwich in London where he formed his theatre company with his film company following soon after.

“I formed the Agape Theatre Company in 1985 and Carmel Greystone Film Company (named after my late mother) in 2000,” says Grey.

CHURCHES

He continued: “We have come a long way since our very first stage production in 1989 and short film in 2000. Some of our first performances took place in various churches across the UK but over the years we have been fortunate to have performed in theatres across Europe and America.”

Grey, who studied writing for stage and screen with Screenwise International and completed Total Filmmaking workshops with the LA Film School, even recalls, with immense pride, a glowing review given on one of his first plays by The Voice.

“Our play – The Loser – was one of the first to stage at Brixton Village and a reporter from The Voice came along to review it.

“With some trepidation I re-

member opening the newspaper to be surprised with the headline ‘The Loser is a Winner’.

“To have received such a positive response in The Voice newspaper, which not only campaigns for positive change on important issues but also celebrates black excellence throughout the UK, was a big deal for us since its declaration of our play as ‘a winner’ then led to us having a sell out performance at the Greenbelt Festival in 1990.”

Since then, Grey has gone on to produce 15 plays, among them Asylum and End The Silence, which after performing to sell-out crowds at the Waterloo East, Courtyard and the Omnibus Theatre (Clapham) was then performed, with glowing reviews, at the National Black Theatre in Harlem as part of a tristate tour of the USA in 2019.

With the likes of film producer and director, Menelik Shabazz describing the play as “thoughtprovoking and very good”, and Jamaican High Commissioner, H.E. Seth George Ramocan saying, “End the Silence is an emotionally and intellectually engaging play which is a must see for all”.

Grey takes such comments in his stride with his main focus of bringing to his audiences performances which provoke thought while also offering hope especially during these troubled times.

“Often my work focuses on the complexities of human relationships and brings in elements related to faith and the challenges these pose based on our personal beliefs and behaviour.

“It is these aspects with which I am most fascinated with that I try to bring across in my writing for the both the stage and screen with the hope that audiences take from it something

A PROLIFIC CAREER: Mark Grey has enjoyed success both on stage and screen – and he’s far from finished (photo: Chris Gander)

positive to reflect on in light of their own life experiences.”

Not wanting to rest on his laurels, Grey is currently developing three theatre projects for post-lockdown.

The first, planned for October, is Celebration to Scandal – The Windrush Story. There is also another feature film and a music video in the pipeline. Exciting times indeed.

But it’s his latest and first feature film, 3 Women starring the esteemed British actress Judith Jacob, which is a prime example of a powerful yet touching character-driven drama which

examines the lives of three disparate women who battle domestic violence, the glass ceiling and street gang culture as they strive to gain respect from their peers, family and employers in urban London.

MOMENTUM

Grey, who already has two SONscreen Film Festival Awards to his name for Best International Entry (2006) and Best Drama (2009) and is nominated in this year’s International Christian Film and Music Festival in the Best Lead Actor category feels that there has been a real mo

mentum shift for black actors and directors. “With the recognition black actors are receiving in this year’s Academy Awards in Los Angeles along with the likes of our very own talent such as the incredible Steve McQueen, John Boyega and a household name in Judith Jacob – we are seeing that in a time like this our stories really do matter and it’s important that this current trend continues for many generations to come.”

3 Women directed by Mark Grey and starring Judith Jacob is available on Amazon Prime

DIVERSE WORKS OF ART: From left, Asylum is one of the 15 plays created by Grey; 3 Women stars British star Judith Jacob

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FEBRUARY 2021

THE VOICE| 43

40 |

THE VOICE MAY 2021

Lifestyle

Music

Push for black power goes on

Sons of Kemet’s new album is a powerful statement, expressing rage and frustration in the wake George Floyd’s death and the BLM protests

BY JOEL CAMPBELL

S

ONS OF Kemet have released their second single To Never Forget The Source from their hotly anticipated upcoming album Black To The Future which is out on May 14.

To Never Forget The Source is the musical centrepiece of Black To The Future – the opening and end of the album flow inwards through this contemplative, prayerful, instrumental track, which features Eddie Wakili-Hick and Tom Skinner on percussion, Theon Cross on

tuba, and Shabaka Hutchings on woodwinds.

Shabaka, who arranged the track, says this track is the “central (ideological) axis-point”.

He says: “The Source refers to the principles which govern traditional African cosmologies/ ontological outlooks and symbolises the inner journey.

“It is the unifying factor that gives meaning both to looking backwards (in nuancing and continually adding depth of contextualisation and meaning to the past) and visioning forward (in speculating and striving to realise a better future for humanity).”

Black To The Future is a bigger affair than previous Sons of

“Black To The Future is a sonic poem for the innovation of power”

Kemet records. The core group is enhanced by guests such as jazz warrior UK saxophonist Steve Williamson, Chicago bandleader/vocalist Angel Bat Dawid, American poet Moor Mother, legendary British Grime MC D Double E, British artist/ rapper/spoken word musical artist Kojey Radical, and more.

Hutchings also adds complex layers of woodwind instrumen-

tation throughout the record, which he did during lockdown.

This album begins and ends with powerful lyrical and musical statements of rage and frustration, expressed outwardly in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the subsequent BLM protests.

The album flows inwards from the start and finish to deeper, inner journeys – looking to forgotten cosmologies and searching for new ways of existing.

Hutchings says: “Black To The Future is a sonic poem for the invocation of power, remembrance and healing.

“It depicts a movement to redefine and reaffirm what it means to strive for black power.

MAKING A STAND: Sons of Kemet “The meaning is not universal, and the cultural context of the listener will shape their understanding,” he continues.

“Yet in the end, the overarching message remains the same: For humanity to progress we must consider what it means to be ‘black to the future’.”

For this album, Shabaka sequenced and named each track in a specific order so that the song titles reflect a single poetic statement to which a depth of symbolic meaning can be intuited in combination with the music/sonic information.

The statement reads: “Field negus – pick up your burning cross – think of home – hustle –

for the culture – to never forget the source – In remembrance of those fallen – Let the circle be unbroken – Envision yourself levitating – Throughout the madness, stay strong – Black.”

Read Hutchings’ mission statement in full online.

MAY 2021

This is Brukout!

THE VOICE | 41

by Seani B

Are the bars to blame?

It’s been argued for years that violent lyrics are no good for our youth – but things are changing

“P

EOPLE DEAD, Dead!, Me nuh have mercy, Angel Doolas, them get we gun thirsty.”

In 1993 I was singing those lyrics from Bounty Killer’s Lodge without a care in the world. I was a teenager hanging out with my friends on White City Estate in west London and never really thought about the implications to such words.

I was heavily indulging in gun toting lyrics glamourising gangster culture from Dancehall and Hip Hop, but to me it was just lyrics delivered on riddims that I loved. It was ART. I never took it for nothing more than just that, in the same manner that people listened to poetry and how the words were constructed together to paint a visual picture in my head.

I could go from listening NWA to Public Enemy, Bounty Killer to ‘Til Shiloh’ Buju Banton, all depending on my mood at the time.

However, there has always a conversation that never went away – “Does violent music contribute to the violence that we see in society?”

I could look at myself in the mirror and say it never knowingly affected me in any manner but I always had a balance of the music I was consuming, plus a stable home life that kept me on the straight and narrow.

But that was over 25 years

SIGN OF THE TIMES: Bounty Killer has questioned some of his earlier lyrics; inset left, Lila Ike is rising through the ranks to become a star in her own right ago! Now I’m all grown up with the responsibility of being a father to a teenage, do I look at things any different now?

It seems that I am not the only one thinking in this manner. I opened up the column referencing lyrics from Bounty Killer and even he recently questioned some of these lyrics “I do learn from my mistakes …. One of my mistakes was to sing seh ‘murder informa’, and ‘people dead’, and ‘my gun nuh join lodge’, and all these things. I am growing, and I

am trying to move past that,” he recently told the press during a presentation in a school in the community where he grew up in Seaview Gardens.

The statement that Bounty made doesn’t take away from what Rodney ‘Bounty’ Price was also singing about during that time.

Poor People Fed Up, Down In The Ghetto and Look Into My Eyes were also part of his catalogue where Bounty also spoke about the other possible causes for violent behaviour in our communities.

He has always been the poor people governor that spoke about the other side of the coin.

The reason for these conversations rising again is because we can see the level of violence that is going on around us.

You can see on the news or social media another case of a stabbing or shooting worldwide every day, and it clearly affects the large majority of people.

This has led me to take per-

through growth and maturity

“I do learn this all comes into play.

Knowing that I have so many from my different platforms this is what I use when selecting what I play mistakes – and where I play it.

Seani in a club environment I am growing could never be the same person that broadcasts on a national and I am radio station. trying to move CRAZY That’s not to say that a few past that” sonal responsibility to my own output. As a Libran for me everything is about balance, especially as I have a young soul walking the streets.

Some may call me a hypocrite, but I like to call it growth, similar to how Bounty talks about it.

When I talk about balance, I think about how the music is played and in what context.

There was a time that I had no filter and didn’t think about “right time, right place” but

risqué tunes may not pass through, but more thought goes into what I’m selecting to play and why.

What is kinda crazy to me and really hits home as a Radio DJ is that we usually come under fire for what we choose to support on air and how it affected the ears listening.

Now that there is so much more freedom for the listener with what they want to hear and when, does this increase their own personal responsibility towards the overall popularity of some of the artists and songs

which are being put under the microscope? I think of supply and demand! If there was no demand, then there would be no need for the supply.

Some of these more edgy artists rack up millions of views from a range many different consumers.

Are the small minority spoiling it for consumers like me that accept as an artform and entertainment in the same way we watch a violent film?

If we want to see a change in the music though, then we need to create a demand! The way we can make that change is by clicking on the songs that we all want to hear created rather than the songs inflating the egos of the ‘killy killy dem”.

So to close let’s look forward and encourage the next generation of artists like Lila Ike, Yaksta, Nation Boss and many others by supporting their music and making sure they hit the trending lists. I’m sure then the others will follow!

42 | THE VOICE APRIL 2021

Lifestyle

Books

Kick back and be inspired Joel Campbell’s selection of books this month focuses on stories to influence and motivate us Take A knee: A Collection of Essays Influenced

By The Political Awakening of Colin Kaepernick Written by Delroy Constantine-Simms

George Floyd, the once reviled act of taking a knee and the raising of a clench fist has effectively been reclaimed and rehabilitated as a potent form of protest against racism and police brutality.

The book can be purchased at a discounted price by contacting customer services at info@blackbookcollective.co.uk

Cack-Handed Written by Gina Yashere

This 1,200-page thought-provoking and timely book entitled #Take A Knee, by Delroy Constantine-Simms, is a powerful excellent collection of more than 100 essays, influenced by two events.

The immortalised actions of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who shocked the world by enacting the black power salute against police brutality during the medal award ceremony of the 1968 Mexico Summer Olympics and the political awakening of Colin Kaepernick, the former National Football League quarter back, who reignited the dormant tradition of Black athlete activism, when he refused to stand during the national anthem throughout the 2016 season.

Constantine-Simms’s book offers a range of dynamic perspectives which challenges academics, politicians, the media and the wider American public to honestly question if exercising ones first amendment right to freedom of speech and the right to protest, is only acceptable if the method of protest excludes sitting, kneeling or raising a fist, during the playing of the national anthem, when the issues of concern revolve around police brutality.

In conclusion, this book asserts that since the death of

Her first ever memoir, Gina Yashere’s Cack-Handed, will be available to purchase later this year.

Touching upon issues of social class, racism and sexuality, Cack-Handed is a collection of eccentric and uproarious stories that reveal how Yashere’s upbringing as a child of Nigerian immigrants in working-class London became the foundation of her incredibly successful career as an international comic.

The co-executive producer and writer of the CBS hit series Bob Hearts Abishola also chronicles her odyssey to get to America and break into Hollywood in this lively and humorous literary offering.

According to family superstition,

Yashere was born to fulfil the dreams of her grandmother, Patience.

The powerful first wife of a wealthy businessman, Patience was poisoned by her jealous sister-wives and marked with a spot on her neck. From birth, Yashere carried a similar birthmark – a sign that she was her grandmother’s chosen heir, and would fulfil Patience’s dreams.

Yashere would learn to speak perfect English, live unfettered by men or children, work a man’s job, and travel the world with a free spirit.

Is she the reincarnation of her grandmother? Maybe. Yashere isn’t ruling anything out.

In Cack-Handed, she recalls her intergenerational journey to success foretold by her grandmother and fulfilled thousands of miles from home.

This hilarious memoir tells the story of how from growing up as a child of Nigerian immigrants in working class London, running from skinheads, and her overprotective mum, Yashere went on to become the first female engineer with the UK branch of Otis, the largest elevator company in the world, where she went through a baptism of fire from her racist and sexist co-workers.

Not believing her life was difficult enough, she later left engineering to become a stand up comic, appearing on numerous television shows and becoming one of the

GAME CHANGER: Colin Kaepernick’s move in the NFL was deemed controversial at the time – but it has influenced sporting fixtures across the globe; inset below, Gina Yashere has put pen to paper for her first-ever memoir

top comedians in the UK, before giving it all up to move to the US, a dream she’d had since she was six years old, watching American kids on television, riding cool bicycles, and solving crimes.

The Business Survival Kit Written by Bianca Miller-Cole and Byron Cole Starting a business isn’t easy.

In fact, it can be scary, exhausting and demoralising. When it finally takes off, even though you’re fulfilling a lifelong dream, it can be a struggle to keep up

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In The Business Survival Kit,

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serial entrepreneurs Byron Cole and Bianca Miller-Cole prepare you for the ride of your life.

You will learn how to cope with stress, anxiety and uncertainty; build your confidence and tackle impostor syndrome; maintain a healthy work/life balance; build strong networks; nurture your personal relationships; and stay motivated (even when faced with failure).

With straight-talking advice and insights from leading experts, The Business Survival Kit will give you the advice and emotional support you need at every stage of starting and maintaining a business, and rigorously prepare you for everything that is to come.

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TRAILBLAZER: Ben Odeje, LIVING pictured THE DREAM: main and above, Veteran was dropped from the England set up after being darts star hailed as Deta man ofHedman the matchhas

set many records in her sport – but could there be some others still to come?

Darts star Deta setting

By Liam Kenny

V

her sights on finishing

position on this year’s order of merit, joining number one Lisa Ashton in the December showpiece.

She told the Voice of Sport: ‘‘I surprised myself, I really did! The

ETERAN DARTS player Deta Hedman has defied the odds yet again when she toppled superstar Fallon Sherrock and qualified for the PDC World Darts Championship 2021 – at the tender age of 60.

Jamaica-born Hedman described her latest win as ‘‘unbelievable’’ as she becomes the second oldest debweek, before I played the utant and the sixth woman Challenge to com- Tour and that’s what set me up pete on the sport’s grandest really, stage. it gave me the belief.

Hedman upset the odds and nar“I hadn’t been throwing rowly pipped Sherrock well and to second I’d been working more days than

the PDC Championship

normal at the Royal Mail.

This meant I hadn’t been able to practice, but when I played the challenge tour the week before and got some good wins, it gave me my belief back.”

“When I played the Challenge Tfour the week before and got some good wins, it really gave me my belief back” Despite her achievements, that include over 200 ranking titles, qualifying means that Hedman and her and brother Al become the first lings to play at the tournament, sibas he

on top of the world

qualified in 2003. Hedman added: “It’s crazy isnt it? Even at my tender age I’m still getting records.

JOKED

“I’ve joked to the PDC that I could persuade Al to dust off his darts and we could represent Jamaica at the upcoming World Cup, as they are a team short.”

Coronavirus restrictions mean it is unclear exactly where and when the World Darts Championship will take place, or if fans will be allowed in.

But Hedman says she is just happy to have made it there.

“It doesn’t feel real yet, but when I see my name up there in the draw and against an opponent, it will sink in.

“If the fans can be there it will be great, but it really doesn’t matter. I’ve got there and that’s it – what will be will be.”

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44 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

Lifestyle

Music

Music for the masses Fiona Dwanell Pacquette is challenging perceptions at the East London School of Music

BY DARELL J PHILIP

P

ERCEPTIONS OF classical music being exclusively for just a privileged few are widely challenged by a school of music in Hackney.

Fiona Dwanell Pacquette, a professionally trained pianist, organist and cellist, has been sharing her passion of classical music at the East London School of Music (ELSOM) she manages for six years now.

With more than 25 years teaching experience, Pacquette, 51, from Bow, east London, has witnessed first-hand the benefits a music school can have on the wider community.

“Often there is a perception that classical music is just for an elite few – usually those who are white, middle-class and with money,” says Pacquette.

“Here, at the East London School of Music, we challenge those perceptions every day by creating opportunities for the wider community to access a genre of music they might not have considered before.”

Pacquette’s passion for music runs in the family. Her mother, Leone R Pacquette, who hails from Roseau in Dominica, is the 11th of 12 siblings that were taught from a very young age to play hymns by their eldest sister.

Her late father, Jean Pacquette, who came from Guadeloupe, had a love for soca. By the age of five Pacquette had learnt from her mother how to play hymns but it was not until much later that she developed an interest in music.

“My interest in classical music didn’t develop until maybe

“Often there is a perception that classical music is just for the elite few” around 14 or 15 when I started taking lessons at school.

I played the piano, cello and French horn but would later give up the latter because I was worried about getting big lips,” says Pacquette.

“So I focused on the cello and the piano which led to me graduating with a Masters in Liturgical Music from Colchester Institute School of Music in Essex.”

While she lists her mother and a few of her former professors as having made a huge impact in her love for music, her biggest inspiration was the late John Prince OBE – a piano and music theory teacher at the Seventh-day Adventist church she attended in Hampstead.

“Mr Prince was my mentor as a musician and organ builder,” she says. “He taught me how to tune pianos and I assisted him with the maintenance and tuning of the former Hampstead pipe organ (removed in 1995).

“After he sadly passed away, I continued teaching piano and music theory for over 25 years until 2015 when I was appointed to manage ELSOM.” Pacquette also paid tribute to the role her late father had played in her progression as an accomplished musician.

“When Dad saw how serious I was in my pursuit of academic excellence through music he bought me my first piano at the age of 19 and also paid for my tuition. Without his sacrifice I

would not be where I am today and my only wish was that he would have been alive to see me graduate.”

Pacquette, the youngest of three siblings, now balances her time between taking care of her mother and sister who suffer with Alzheimer’s and infantile autism respectively (her other sister is in residential care with schizophrenia) whilst managing ELSOM. Yet in spite of the challenges such a balance can pose, Pacquette is adamant she would not have it any other way.

PASSION: Fiona Dwanell Pacquette has managed the East London School of Music for the past six years

STRONG

“I have a really good support system around me – friends who assist in the care of my mum and sister while I teach and run ELSOM during the day.

It all makes a difference and it’s my faith in God which has kept me strong to this day.”

Now in its sixth year, ELSOM has grown in leaps and bounds under Pacquette’s direction and she is keen for the steady progress it has seen over the years to continue.

“After we first opened our doors to the local community in Hackney we had five professionally trained music teachers and 15 students,” she says.

“Fast forward to today and we now have 10 teachers and 90 students – evidence that classical music is for everyone and not just the privileged few.”

With the price of a 30-minute session as low as £12, Pacquette wants every person, no matter how young or old, to have the opportunity to fulfil their musical dreams.

“While 70 per cent of our students are under 25, the school is for everyone. Hackney has a high population of members

from the Black and African Caribbean community and our school has attracted such individuals who have demonstrated exceptional musical ability and talent through the many performances we have given.

REHEARSAL

“We tell our students all the time that they can be the next Sheku Kanneh-Mason or Chineke! Orchestra member.”

The students were given an invitation to a Chineke! Orchestra rehearsal which had to be cancelled due to the current lockdown. But that disappointment may be short-lived as

there are now promising discussions taking place about collaboration with the school.

“Once the current lockdown comes to an end, we are excited to have been given an opportunity to collaborate with the Chineke! Orchestra which is important for our students because they will get the opportunity to see first-hand professional musicians who look just like them and take inspiration from that for themselves,” adds Pacquette.

As well as looking forward to that special collaboration, ELSOM students will continue to perform to local council members and the wider community

who have embraced the talent on the display.

“Music brings communities together and in classical music we have a genre which not only has a calming effect on those who listen to or play it but also a genre which should be made accessible to everyone who desires to have it.”

For more information on the East London School of Music visit elsomonline.org.uk/ In memory of Mrs Leone R Pacquette who, at the time of publication, sadly but peacefully passed away (January 9, 1935 - April 22, 2021).

PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE: Pacquette at Westminster Abbey; a student learns the Jalon Pipe Organ; Kena Yeron Jalon, cellist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

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MAY 2021

THE VOICE | 45

A 2020 vision

TOP SPORTS COVERAGE 24/7 VOICE-ONLINE.CO.UK/SPORT

OF SPORT NEWSPAPER

MAKING AN IMPACT

Jamaica’s athletes back move to include island nation in talks on shaping the sport’s future

By Karen Palmer

S

OME OF the most respected figures in Jamaican athletics have lent their weight of support to the ‘Global Conversation for the Future of Athletics’.

The island nation is small in size but giant in its contribution to the sport through the achievements of Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann FraserPryce, pictured right, Don Quarrie and many more.

Now they are determined that their voice resonates just as widely through the international consultation to help shape the sport in the future.

“We have been a track and field powerhouse for a long time and we plan to

“This is definitely putting a better foot forward’ continue being a powerhouse in the sport,” Ian Forbes, Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association first vice president, told the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper.

“So we need to be at the table and we need to be engaging the relevant authorities with respect to the sport and its development.

“I am pretty confi-

dent that we will have a strong voice in that process.

“In participating, we as an association would be reaching out to our athletes, coaches, and other stakeholders within the group to get their feedback as well.”

SUPPORT

Coach and husband to world triple jump silver medallist Shanieka Ricketts and national jumps coach, Kerrylee Ricketts, has also lent his support.

“So, I think this is good, the fact that they want to get us involved and hear what we have to say,” he said.

“And I think this should have been the conversation before they made some of the changes that they implemented. This is definitely putting a better foot forward, so to speak.”

Businesswoman backs rugby league in Ghana

By Milton Boyce THE FURTHER development of rugby league in Ghana has been boosted courtesy of sponsorship of the Ghana Rugby League Federation by a UKbased businesswoman. Sara Gawa-McNiel, resident in London, is of Ghanaian heritage and a keen supporter of the sport.

Her investment, which covers 2021 and 2022, will be used to fund the growth of specific domestic activity in Ghana, including introducing youth and women’s competition, improving the men’s domestic competitions and developing more match officials and coaches, with a view to

POWERHOUSE: Jamaica has punched above its weight in the world of athletics thanks to the likes of Usain Bolt

Ghana meeting the Full Member criteria of the IRL and ERL by the end of 2022.

“As part of the Ghanaian community in the UK and a passionate fan of the sport, I am very pleased to see it already develop to such a level in Ghana in such a short time,” Gawa-McNiel said.

“Seeing the progress in both the men’s and women’s game is quite inspiring and I hope our contribution can help that blossom further.”

The developments will be overseen by European Rugby League’s Middle East & Africa regional director, Remond Safi, who will also administer the monies to ensure that the objectives of the funds are achieved.

Historic Basketball Africa League season tips off in Rwandan capital

By Rodney Hinds THE BASKETBALL Africa League (BAL) will launch the league’s historic inaugural season with tip off scheduled for Sunday, May 16 at the Kigali Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, with 12 teams from across Africa competing in the new professional league.

The BAL, a partnership between the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA), builds on the foundation of club competitions FIBA Regional Office Africa has organised on the continent and marks the NBA’s first collaboration to operate a league outside of North America. The first BAL Finals will be held on Sunday, May 30.

Champions from the national leagues in Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia earned their participation in the inaugural season. The remaining six teams, which come from Algeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique and Rwanda, secured their participation through BAL qualifying tournaments conducted by FIBA Regional Office Africa across the continent in late 2019.

The BAL will implement robust health and

HOST: The Kigali Arena safety protocols for the 12 teams and personnel travelling to Rwanda, based on guidance from the World Health Organisation and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, with advice from public health officials and medical experts.

“We are thrilled that the inaugural Basketball Africa League season will take place at the world-class Kigali Arena,” said BAL president Amadou Gallo Fall.

“Through the BAL, we will provide a platform for elite players from across the continent to showcase their talent and inspire fans of all ages, use basketball as an economic growth engine across Africa, and shine a light on Africa’s vibrant sporting culture.”

46 | THE VOICE MAY 2021

Sport

LET THE GAMES BEGIN Rugby League World Cup 2021 chief executive Jon Dutton hopes for a special tournament

By James Aldrred

S

INCE NOVEMBER 2015, Jon Dutton has led the team responsible for delivering this year’s Rugby League World Cup. With under seven months to go until the first tackle is made, the chief executive of the competition is confident that this autumn will deliver all of the hopes and dreams he has had since his first day in office.

“We’re in a very good place,” Dutton told the Voice of Sport.

“We’ve got commercial partners joining us, we’re doing very well with our ticket sales and we’ve got a social impact programme up and running. Many of the building blocks have been made over a six-year period. We’re a tournament with a purpose.”

Unlike many other major sporting events, this World Cup is conscious of creating legacies off the pitch as well as on it. Through several initiatives, including a mental fitness programme and a massive volunteering scheme, all three World Cups will look to make an impact in local communities that stretches far past the five weeks of action.

“Social impact has been driving our vision since day one,” Dutton says.

“The tournament will be great but we always wanted this World Cup to be more than that.

The athletes will be amazing but the genuine, true legacy of this World Cup will be everything we have delivered and what we will leave behind. That is the heartbeat of the tournament.”

However, the troubles of the last 12 months and the coronavirus pandemic has challenged much of what Dutton and his team have been able to achieve.

“We have to consider the complexity of travel and that is at the forefront of our minds” Following the Government’s announcement of a route out of lockdown, Dutton is optimistic that come October 23, the men’s, women’s and wheelchair World Cups will be able to flourish as planned.

ENCOURAGED

“We still don’t know how many spectators will be let into stadiums but we are greatly encouraged by the Government’s roadmap,” he says defiantly.

“We think we’ll benefit from the pilot events and what’s to come over the next few months.

It’s hard enough staging a domestic tournament but as this is international, we have to consider the complexity of travel and that is very much at the forefront of our minds.

“We just have to face the challenges in our way and overcome them as best as we cancontrol the controllables, be agile and be positive.”

One of the many exciting elements about this year’s World Cup is the number of nations who will be making their debuts on Rugby League’s biggest stage. This includes Brazil, who will kick off the women’s tournament against England on November 9, and Jamaica, who will feature in Group C of the men’s World Cup against the likes of New Zealand and Ire-

QUIETLY CONFIDENT: Jon Dutton is keeping positive when it comes to the Rugby League World Cup 2021 going ahead land. Speaking about the latter, Dutton is excited to see how the Reggae Warriors get on.

“We are wonderfully excited to have Jamaica in the tournament,” he says. “If you look at the group they’re in, it’s probably the most fascinating out of the men’s, women’s and wheelchair tournaments. I can’t wait to see them in action. We have

already been out to Kingston with the World Cup and several ambassadors to do some community engagement activities and to promote rugby league.

“This World Cup is about people, pride and place. We’re hoping people will come out” We are very cognizant of the fact that once the trophies are lifted, we want there to be a true legacy in Jamaica and in other nations, too.

“Hopefully as a result of this tournament, even more countries will be encouraged to play the game, seek government support and compete in future tournaments.”

With matches staged at the likes of the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium and Old Trafford, tick-

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ets for the men’s, women’s and wheelchair World Cups have all been in high demand.

Having been put on general sale early last month, Dutton is

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urging those who have yet to secure their seats to do so as soon as possible.

“We have 61 games against three different tournaments to see some of the most amazing athletes, to see new nations compete and to create memories,” he says excitedly.

“This World Cup is about people, pride and place. We’re hoping people will come out and support the teams and really enjoy the experience.”

But what will Dutton consider

voicenews

as a successful World Cup? Entertaining spectacles? Sold out stadiums? No. To him, success is much more than that.

“A successful tournament is one where people have enjoyed the experience of the 61 games and we have made a difference with our social impact programme,” he states.

“If we can reflect on making a genuine impact on people’s lives and the athletes deliver on the pitch (which I take as a given!) that will be a success for us.

“That means we have delivered a tournament with a purpose and that’s what we’re setting out to do.”

For more information about tickets, the structure of the tournament and the preparations taking place ahead of October 23, visit https://www.rlwc2021. com/.

www.voice-online.co.uk

MAY 2021

THE VOICE | 47

Sport

A 2020 vision

HAMMER WITH A GOAL

West Ham left back Ben Johnson hasn’t had it easy – but he’s proving what he’s capable of

By Rodney Hinds

W

EST HAM are genuine Champions League contenders and young defender Ben Johnson is excited at the prospect.

The East Enders go down the Premier League home straight knowing that continued good results will see them playing against Europe’s elite clubs.

It’s quite a turnaround for an outfit normally looking over their shoulders.

Johnson, who has played his part when called upon by manager David Moyes, told the Voice of Sport: “This season’s been really positive so far. We’re trying to keep it going and working hard for our rewards.

“Being in the top half was always our aim from the start.

“We have to play a lot of the teams above us, which will be tough games. We believe that it is in our hands where we are going to finish.”

“We as players have been learning, too.

We are so fortunate” Johnson, who made his Hammers debut in February 2019, was fulsome in his praise of Moyes: “He’s just picked up where he left off. He’s instilled that hard work ethic.”

The 150th of 158 academy graduates since 1952-53, Johnson has a genuine affinity to the club and has much to thank his dedicated parents for.

“When I was around six, it was down to my parents as to me signing for the club. It wasn’t really my decision. Ever since I signed I’ve been connected to the club. But it was nothing really to do with me, it’s my parents who I have to thank.”

West Ham’s academy helped develop the left back’s obvious early talent but it was not all plain sailing. He added: “We know there’s a purpose to the academy. In football anything can happen; there’s extremely talented players up and down the country that don’t make it.

“Going through the academy is a tough process, there’s lots of up and downs and I’d say more downs to be honest.

I’ve had a lot of downs but they have put me in good stead. I am nowhere the finished article, I’m just looking to come in each

day and week and work hard.”

Work hard he did, and in the end he got his chance two years ago.

“I thought I had a shot at the first team when I started training with them and getting more familiar with them. It was a difficult transition but I made it. I didn’t think when I made my debut that I would continue to play. I knew that I would go back to the U23s and continue my development.

“Once you get a taste of it you strive to repeat it and be involved in the next game.”

OPPORTUNITY

As a teenager injuries and lack of opportunity might have curtailed his ambitions but he remained as steadfast as some of the tackles he’s put in against the PL’s very best players.

“I’ve had my trials and tribulations but I wouldn’t want it any other way,” says the articulate 21-year-old. “I think if it was straightforward, I wouldn’t have had the perseverance or motivation to continue.

“My ambition is to get as many minutes as I can. We’ll see what happens and I don’t want to look too far into the future.”

The last 12 months have been challenging for most around the globe because of the pandemic – and it has been no different for professional footballers.

Johnson admitted: “It’s been difficult. We’ve been privileged to train and play and come to work every day. Subconsciously the rapport we have built over the last year has made us

stronger. The mind and body will have to get used to having fans in stadiums again but we are really looking forward to them coming back.”

Despite the aforementioned privilege, Johnson and his team mates have never forgotten the role they have to play within broader society. Over the last year, he has been more than willing to play his part in giving a boost to young people despite being only a youngster himself.

“Me and Aaron Cresswell are ambassadors for equality, the Stop the Hate campaign.

“We as players have been learning, too. I’ve got lots of out if it. It’s essential to give something back. As players we are so fortunate. Football is huge and the platform that us players have is important.”

Johnson, nephew of former Manchester United and England full-back Paul Parker and cousin of former England and Tottenham Hotspur defender Ledley King, was keen to talk up the sterling efforts of Manchester United ace, Marcus Rashford, who has led the way in regards to footballers aiding communities.

Johnson admitted: “It’s been incredible what he’s done.

“Through football he has excelled in his field.

“He’s been able to seize the opportunity to help others and he has affected millions, not just in the UK but around the world, it’s brilliant what he’s done and all the props that have come his way he deserves.”

ALL TO PLAY FOR: Ben Johnson is one of West Ham’s rising stars; inset left, ready for action under the watchful eyes of manager David Moyes

Celebrations continue after Ethiopia qualify for AFCON

By Rodney Hinds

THE JUBILATION continues after Ethiopia’s national football team, The Walias, qualified for the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), following an eight-year absence.

A goalless draw between Niger and Madagascar helped Ethiopia to qualify in its group match finishing in second place. Cote d’Ivoire topped the group with Madagascar and Niger finishing third and fourth.

The news was greeted with jubilation across the country. In Addis Ababa, residents took to the streets with their flags and honked their horns.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as well as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Demeke Mekonnen, congratulated the national team for their historic achievement in messages

INCREDIBLE FEAT: The Walias will make an AFCON appearance after an eight-year absence

on their social media accounts. Team Ethiopia’s coach, Wobetu Abate, is now looking forward to going to Cameroon, where AFCON will be hosted, with the best squad to hold the name for

Ethiopia. He said: “Our people absolutely love football, and we have achieved our Africa Cup of Nations dream to make them happy. Ethiopians deserve this. Now our focus is to build on

our team. We will prepare well for the upcoming AFCON as well as the World Cup qualifiers in June,” said Abate.

Ethiopia will face South Africa, Ghana and Zimbabwe in Group G of the journey to FIFA World Cup, Qatar 2022.

Ethiopia has a rich footballing tradition in Africa and hold prestige as one of the founding participants of the inaugural Africa Cup of Nations tournament in 1957, together with Sudan and Egypt.

The Walias has been representing Ethiopia in regional, continental, and international competitions since its founding in 1943 and won the African Cup of Nations in 1962 on home soil.

A total of 24 teams will take part in the 33rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, which will be hosted by Cameroon in January 2022. This will be Ethiopia’s 11th appearance at Africa’s most prestigious football tournament.

48 | THE VOICE FEBRUARY 2021

ruGby leaGue world cuP 2021 is on your doorsteP #squadsassemble

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