OCTOBER 2020 • ISSUE NO. 1911
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Celebrating Black History Month 2020
DYNAMIC DUO Leading the way on and off screen
She was captivated by luminaries such as Sir Trevor McDonald and Moira Stuart on her TV screen – and now she is a Sky News anchor.
Gillian Joseph - Page 4
Her new children’s programme focuses on educating British youngsters – and their parents – about the real impact of divisions in society.
Charlene White - Page 57
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4 | THE VOICE OCTOBER 2020
News
At home with Gillian Joseph
SCREEN QUEEN: Gillian Joseph says her home is her haven after a hectic day at Sky News
As a young girl, she was captivated by the likes of Sir Trevor McDonald and Moira Stuart on her TV screen – and now, the Sky News anchor is reaching a milestone in the role she has worked so hard for. Here, she sheds light on her life in and out of work
I
TN, THE television news organisation, is celebrating its 50th year this Black History Month. And it’s apt because it has a glorious history of leading the way in diversity in front of the cameras. Sir Trevor McDonald was the first black news anchor on television. Barbara Blake Hannah, five years before, was an onscreen reporter, and Cy Grant read the news in calypso in the 1960s. But in 1973, ITN bit the bullet and put a black man (McDonald) in the anchor’s seat of its main news programme.
ICONIC
It took eight years for the BBC to follow suit with not just a black news anchor, but a female one at that. That was in 1981, when Moira Stuart became an iconic symbol for young black girls who wanted to be just like her. Gillian Joseph was one of those young black girls. Sir Trevor McDonald and Moira Stuart were her role models.
I’m constantly working, even when I’m not on air She achieved her dream and has become one of Britain’s best-known and much-loved news anchors. And when she finally met Sir Trevor he told her what a fan of hers he was – and then he introduced her to Her Majesty the Queen! On September 12, Gillian was celebrating 15 years as one of the faces of Sky News Breakfast. So how does a celebrity with a high-powered job like her’s do it with a husband and three children in tow? She gave us a sneak preview into her hectic work schedule, the domestic lifestyle she maintains and the happy family home that underpins it all. Current job: Sky TV news presenter (Sky News Breakfast 6am - 10am on Saturdays, Sky News Breakfast 6am - 8.30am on Sundays, as well as Mondays and Fridays on shifting times) Home: Stanmore, North London Family: Husband Tunde, daughters Tiwa and Dara and son Ore Salary: Six figures I wake up at 3am. Every time the alarm goes I think, ‘No, this can’t be happening
to me again’. I’ve been getting up early for work for a number of years. Despite that, it doesn’t get any easier when that alarm goes. So I get up, sit on the bed and feel sorry for myself for a few minutes before jumping in the shower. I get the stories we’ll be covering sent to me the night before and I’m briefed on the guests. But you cannot prepare for breaking news you have to react to live on air.
ADRENALINE
I don’t eat breakfast. I don’t eat anything until I come off air at 10am. I feed off my adrenaline on air, but as soon as I come off I’m ravenous. Therein lies my problem. Apparently the body cannot differentiate between fatigue and hunger. The reality is that I’m tired and need to sleep when I come off air, but I don’t recognise that, so I graze all the way home. My body is in a constant state of siege and I never know if I want to sleep or I want to eat. I’m constantly working, even when I’m not on air. In my job you have to, to keep up with the relentless pace of 24-hour news. Even on holiday. I’m looking at the Sky ticker going across the screen, even now. Being on air is like your final year exams – it is absolutely exhausting. I don’t think people realise – you’d be surprised at the number of people who think you just turn up and sit there. I wouldn’t say I’m famous, but I am constantly recognised. I always feel I have to be on my best behaviour and held on a
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different level of account. I was very conscious of the rules during lockdown. If a member of the public saw me on Sky News then saw me breaking the rules it would be an issue. I have a large wardrobe because I am on TV so much. I have had to add a whole floor in our house for my clothes. I can wear the same outfit twice, but not within the same month. I have a rotation in my mind so I know when it’s okay for an outfit to resurface. I do my hair myself now –
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I have spent too much time in hairdressers. At home I stress about my children – are they happy? How is my eldest performing in her new job? Did my middle child, who is going to university, get the right grades? And I worry about how missing school for six months has affected my son.
HAVEN
But home is still my haven when I close that front door on the world I start to relax. I think about things so
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much my husband says he hears me sighing in my sleep. I leave the snoring to him – he’s very good at it. My bedroom is my favourite room. I spend far too much time in it because it’s a fair size. When we watch a film together, all five of us, it’s sometimes on my bed. It’s like an entertainment room at the moment. The best thing about my house: it’s not like an English house. It’s has a veranda – like in the Caribbean.
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THE WEEKLY GLEANER
SEPTEMBER 17-23, 2020 • 5
14 | THE VOICE
OCTOBER 2020
News feature
WHEN WHITE BECOMES BLACK Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug – white women – both chose to live a lie in identifying as black. But now that they’ve been publicly outed, how many more privileged individuals are using and abusing our culture for their personal gain? By Dotun Adebayo
F
IRST RACHEL Dolezal and now Jessica Krug. How many other white people in prominent positions are pretending to be black? Jessica Krug is as black as the stars and stripes. Yet for years she posed as a person of colour. She got away with it, too – until a few weeks ago when the whole charade came crashing down around her ears and she was forced to resign her post as a distinguished professor of black studies (no, you couldn’t make it up) at the highly regarded George Washington University stateside. It’s an almost identical story to that of Rachel Dolezal who, five years ago, was exposed by her white parents as being a fraud – no more black than the Union Jack. At the time, Dolezal was the head of her local branch of the NAACP, the National Association of the Advancement of Coloured People stateside. No, you can’t make it up. But why would a white person choose to be black? In her confession, Krug puts it down to some psychological trauma she suffered as a child: “To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban
she ‘passed’, but on the whole the idea that any white person would want to pose as black, with all the prejudices that would incur, was unimaginable to many. So it went largely without question in an America where a single drop of African blood demarcated you as black. And when it was questioned, on job application forms or otherwise, Dolezal would lie and say her dad was a black man.
It’s taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify... I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say SLAVE Crucially, neither Dolezal or I’m black, Krug can claim to suffer Post and there’s a Traumatic Slave Syndrome, the ideas that the legacy of difference enslavement still impacts on Kansas City under various assumed identities within a blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African blackness, then USrooted blackness, then Caribbeanrooted Bronx blackness,” she says, admitting to being a culture leech. Rachel Dolezal’s story of passing as black is similar but not the same. She too claims to have been diagnosed with some form of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and maintains: “It’s taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify... I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms.” Different from Krug, Dolezal, pictured left, had apparently seen herself as black since she was a child. In the cauldron of race that is America today, her colour was something a permanent tan and a series of Afro-centric hairstyles could easily rectify. Plus, she paraded one of the black children her parents had adopted as her ‘son’. Her racial claim would raise a few eyebrows here and there in the decade that
black people today, which Dr Joy DeGruy first identified as a condition of African Americans. “It’s a theory,” she says, “that explains the etiology of many of the adaptive survival behaviours in African American communities throughout the United States and the diaspora. “It is a condition that exists as a consequence of multi-generational oppression of Africans and their descendants resulting
COMPLEX: Jessica Krug with her controversial book; inset, Krug as a youngster James Baldwin. She connected with black history and black culture so much she knew “in her heart” she was supposed to be born black. Eventually people started regarding her as bi-racial, except for her African-American husband whose standard of beauty was the actress Nicole Kidman, and who kept asking her why
It’s a condition that exists as a consequence of multigenerational oppression of Africans and their descendants from centuries of chattel slavery. A form of slavery which was predicated on the belief that African Americans were inherently/genetically inferior to whites. This was then followed by institutionalised racism which continues to perpetuate injury.” Dolezal says that ‘blackness’ was informed by having adopted black siblings and reading black literature such as
she was wearing her hair in braids and reading so much black pow-wow literature. It is hard to quantify how much damage Dolezal caused by trying to be black. She led Black Lives Matters marches and benefitted from affirmative action in the employment market. She would almost certainly not have ascended to being in charge of her local NAACP of-
fice if they had known her true identity. She had to resign the post as soon as her cover was blown. Jessica Krug’s ‘blackness’ is more complicated and, arguably, much more damaging. Not for her the fake tan and braided hair, she chose to be ‘black’ on a much more intellectual level, with the occasional stereotypical ‘jive talk’. Not only was she a professor of black studies at a major university, her book Fugitive Modernities: Black Political Imagination and Radical Silence elevated her to the status of world expert on black people.
PRIZES
The book’s nomination for two of America’s most prestigious black prizes – the Harriet Tubman Award and the Frederick Douglass Prize – suggests that some believed she knows black people, arguably, better than we know ourselves. And yet she got away with it for years. No one willing to question her conflicting biographies of being this kind of black or that kind of black and of La-
tino heritage to boot. She went so far as to suggest the correct pronunciation of her name was ‘Cruz’, her true family name, but an immigration official spelt it incorrectly on her family’s arrival in the United States from South America. And she coopted the entire black community of “bruthas” and “sistas” by her “WE/OUR” discourse of “us” against “them”. Try as hard as they did to be black, Jessica Krug and Rachel Dolezal could never BE black. Who FEELS it, KNOWS it. The most they could do is feel what it’s like to know it. And that’s not the same thing. Jessica Krug went further. By claiming the intellectual high ground, she is now responsible, as her publisher Duke University and her colleagues at George Washington attest to, for having skewered a generation of black studies and black thinking to her fabricated point of view. Who knows how much black intellectual thought is predicated on her falsehood and for how many years it will penetrate black history.
28 | THE VOICE MARCH 2020
16 | THE VOICE OCTOBER 2020
News Feature
VICE KAMALA COULD SET THE PRECEDENT As the US gets ready to elect its next president, Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s choice for vice president, Kamala Harris, could make history as the States’ first-ever black woman to hold the role. But which black female political stars have what is takes to become the UK’s first black female prime minister? Dotun Adebayo takes a look at the possible candidates...
O
N HEARING the news that the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had chosen a woman of colour as his running mate, there was a buzz in socially distanced Westminster among women MPs and, particularly, amongst black women MPs. Harris, who identifies as black and Indian, was like a beacon for all black politicians in Britain (those who can see the light and those who wish to extinguish it) that it is possible for a woman of African heritage to ascend to the pinnacle of American politics even during the racially divisive presidency of the current president. Where is our Kamala Harris? Well, watch this space. A Westminster insider reliably informs The Voice that some of the fantastic women that you see in these pages are currently setting up a formal BAME caucus in parliament, after years of informal groupings. Such a caucus would make the prospect of a black British woman prime minister just that much more achievable, whichever side of the political spectrum they may come from. So proud to see Kamala Harris make history as the first Black woman to accept the vice-presidential nomination. An inspiration to women across the world — Taiwo Owatemi MP As another woman of mixed Indian and Caribbean heritage, I’m so proud to see what she has achieved, despite all the division in politics right now. Next stop, the White House — Janet Daby MP 48 years ago amidst tremendous cynicism, sexism and hate, Shirley Chisholm became the first black women to make a run for the White House. On her shoulders Kamala Harris now stands. Joe Biden has picked
MAKING HERSTORY: Kamala Harris could become the first ever black female US Vice President alongside Joe Biden when America goes to the polls next month – and it could pave the way for our own black female politicians
If they play their cards right, there’s no reason why we won’t see a black woman at No. 10 a great running mate to be his Vice President. I pray they win in November — David Lammy MP By next month – November 3 – the JamaicanIndian-American politician Kamala Harris could be just a heartbeat from the presidency of the United States. It would be a dream come true for her, a dream come true for all righteous African Americans (of any persuasion) and a dream come true for South Asian Americans and women in America and the world over.
ACHIEVEMENTS
The ripples of her achievements have already been felt in the UK. And if she were to become a two-term president, were she to be on the winning ticket come November, she would be at the top of the US political scene for the next 12 years. The impact of that is incalculable. Donald Trump says it would be an “insult to America”, but most of the world seems to be relishing the prospect with both thumbs up. Should the 2020s be the decade of Kamala Harris, the likelihood of the 2030s being the decade of the black woman politician in Britain is a very real prospect. The thought of one of the current crop of black women in parliament being the next
woman prime minister is salivating. If they play their cards right there’s no reason why we won’t see a black woman at No. 10. If they accept that the next few years will be dominated by a male prime minister
to set out their stall – whether Labour or Tory. It is now that they need to start building up their parliamentary and grassroots support. It is now that they need to get their media training locked
Should the 2020s be the decade of Kamala Harris, the likelihood of the 2030s being the decade of the black woman in Britain is a very real prospect and a male leader of the opposition, our black female MPs must wait patiently for their turn to ‘run tings’. But it is now, during this waiting time, that they need
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down so that they appeal to the television camera. And it is now that they need to start building alliances in the way their male counterparts have done since birth. But we
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don’t need to tell them how to do their job, they KNOW. Because of the lessons of history. None of them, for example, will make the catastrophic mistakes (one after the other) of their male counterpart Chuka Umunna, who would now be the leader of the Labour Party, possibly only one election away from entering Downing Street if he had stuck to the script. Which one of the sistas we feature here will grab the mantle of leader of their party when Messrs Johnson and Starmer are done and dusted is anyone’s guess. But which one of them has got what it takes? It’s up to you to decide. But first, let us remind ourselves of the high price these brave black women pay in doing their civic duty and in trying to bring about positive change to their
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communities and the people who live there. For to achieve the country’s top job, they will have to overcome the inevitable abuse – racist and misogynist – that black women face every day.
POSSIBILITY
For, while people over in America came to terms with the very real possibility that they could soon see a black woman in a post that no woman has ever succeeded in being elected to, here in Britain one of parliament’s veteran black female politicians, Dawn Butler, was pulled over by the police, in what she describes as racial profiling, while travelling by car. It would seem then that black women MPs are not awarded the respect that their counter-
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OCTOBER 2020 THE VOICE | 17
News Feature part Kamala Harris has been awarded Stateside, and that an equivalent job promotion for a black woman here would be too high a mountain of prejudice to climb. The reality is that Kamala Harris also faces abuse. Not least from the current president who claims it would be “an insult” to America if she became president and refuses to pronounce her name correctly. That, you could argue is politics. A dirty game if you are black AND a woman. It is with this double-whammy in mind that the next woman prime minister of this country will have to campaign. This and a speedy alliance with Ms Harris, if she were to become vice-president. It was such an alliance or caucus that Lord Woolley tried to pull off with black MPs over here during Barack Obama’s eight years in office. It never happened.
ENDEAVOUR
She has not yet made a bid for the leadership, but keep an eye on her when the right time comes herself from him. She subsequently jumped ship from frontline politics before she would, most likely, have been summarily shoved to the backbenches by Sir Keir Starmer. But Abbott is the great survivor of British politics. Never say never. She is unlikely to accept elevation to the House of Lords so, as Arnie should have said, she “might be back”. Unlikely, but you never know.
The majority of black MPs in Britain don’t see eye to eye. Not even on the question of being black. Which is why the possibility of a caucus, focusing on what these MPs have in common as black women, to meet Kamala Harris if she is on the winning ticket come the American elections next month, will be a much more straightforward endeavour. As we said, The Voice can tell you exclusively that such an alliance is being formerly crafted as we speak and could be a real game changer for the politics in Westminster if unity is strength still means anything. While some black MPs may dither about colour, none can prevaricate about gender. Black women comprise a caucus whether they like it or not. Whatever side of the political spectrum they belong to. They would benefit hugely from a black woman in the White House. If they unite. So which one of these women could do a Kamala Harris in the UK?
Dawn Butler ran for deputy leadership of the party earlier this year but, like so many others, hit the buffers and was not retained for inclusion in Starmer’s new Shadow Cabinet. The former Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities would be an ideal conduit for a tete a tete with a possible Vice-President Harris. Should Sir Keir stumble and fall, Butler would likely throw her hat in the ring again and, who knows...
Diane Abbott It would seem her shot is spent. As Shadow Home Secretary, she rose to the highest position of any black woman in parliament ever. Had Labour won the 2019 election she would have been just two heart beats away from No. 10. And that ain’t bad. Alas, it was never to be, the Great British public could not stomach the thought of a Jeremy Corbyn government, and she had hitched her star too closely to the former Labour leader to be able to extricate
Kate Osamor, former Shadow Secretary of State for Overseas Development, hails from a radical political dynasty and was a notable absentee from the Labour leadership ballot due to well publicised family issues. She is a shrewd political operator, however, and is doing the right thing in keeping her head down and concentrating on her constituency work. Exactly the sort of form you need to take on the leadership of your party should there be a vacancy.
Helen Grant A graduate of the Operation Black Vote ‘academy’, for years she was the Tories’ only black woman MP and, as such, was rapidly elevated to Minister for Sport and Tourism. A little too quickly for some Tory grandees, who considered her not up to the job. But politics is a funny old game, as the multi-millionaire Adam Afriyie, once tipped for the top, can testify.
TRAILBLAZER: She was one of the Tories’ only black female MPs for years – but now Helen Grant has shown she has what it takes to get the top job one day
Chi Onwurah is the real unknown factor among the Labour women. She is popular among the grassroots of the party and her parliamentary colleagues. That’s all it takes to get to the top. She has not yet made a bid for the leadership, but keep an eye on her when the right time comes. Kemi Badenoch, pictured below left, was once upon a time the black woman most likely to in the Conservative Party but came unstuck as a Vice-Chair of the party after admitting using her skills as a systems analyst to hack into Labour MP Harriet Harman’s website. But, hey, if Boris Johnson can become PM with all the skeletons in his closet... Marsha de Cordova was liked enough by Keir Starmer to make her his Shadow Secretary of States for Women and Equalities (which seems to be the default Labour Shadow Cabinet position for black women), succeeding Dawn Butler. If she plays her cards right she should rise to somewhere near the top of the party. Florence Eshalomi, pictured below right, was only elected at the end of last year, so give her time to make her name. But what she’s said so far makes her seem like a candidate to watch out for in future Labour leadership elections. She’s going to have to step up, though. A b e n a OppongAsare is another south London politician from the class of 2019 intake.
effective she will be, but she is one of the many women politicians in Britain who have been inspired by Kamala Harris’s rise to the top of the Democratic party and should be thinking now: “If Kamala can do it, why can’t I?”
She and Bell Ribeiro-Addy, above left and right respectively, were the first women MPs with a Ghanaian background to be elected into parliament. And right now Ghanaians (Stormzy et al) are carrying the swing, so not beyond the stretch of the imagination to consider them
future leaders of their party and, hence, future PM candidates. Taiwo Omatemi, pictured below centre, is another of the class of 2019 in the Labour Party and MP for Coventry North West. It remains to be seen how
C l a u d i a Webbe in Leicester rose from being a very effective and eloquent councillor in Islington on her path to becoming an MP, replacing the disgraced Keith Vaz MP in that seat. If Labour were to lurch to the far left again or she were to veer to the centre (unlikely), she would definitely be one of the favourites to lead the party. And, who knows, if the coming recession sends the country hurtling towards some form of socialism she might be what they are looking for.
28 | THE VOICE
OCTOBER 2020
Northern Nigerian Independence News
CELEBRATING 60 YEARS
From oil to Nollywood to Afrobeats, Nigeria has a lot to be proud of as it reaches a milestone
T
HE 60TH anniversary of Nigerian independence is cause for celebration – but for the obvious COVID reasons the party will not be happening at the High Commission as is tradition. So the country’s diamond jubilee will come and pass without the usual feast of jollof rice and Afrobeats. The government has announced that they will not let COVID defeat them and have declared that this jubilee anniversary celebrations should run the entire year right up until September 30, 2021, rather than the normal 24-hour knees up and done. After 60 years of self-government most Nigerians will not be unduly surprised. They have come to expect that when it comes to Naija, expect the unexpected. Even though Nigerian news-
Every artist from Beyonce to Ed Sheeran uses the musical style
1970 The Nigerian civil war comes to an end. 1980 Nigeria beats Algeria 3-0 in the Nations Cup final.
paper cartoonists are saying there’s little to celebrate, there are some unexpected reasons to celebrate the last 60 years...
1990 Nollywood becomes the world’s biggest film industry, just a decade after Bollywood films dominated the Nigerian cinema landscape. The camcorder movie business churns out more feature films than anywhere else in the world and sparks off an entire cottage industry.
1960 Nigeria gains independence despite discovering oil in the Niger Delta region seven years earlier. Three years after that discovery, on Sunday, January 15, 1956, the first commercial field started producing oil.
2000 Aliko Dangote becomes the richest African in the world with a fortune today worth $8.3 billion (£6.4bn) built from a small trading firm in 1977 to a global empire trading in commodities such as flour and
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sugar. Unusually for an economy based almost entirely on the production of oil. If he carries out his desire to own Arsenal football club, there will be even more reason to celebrate for Nigerians in their jubilee year.
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2010 Afrobeats take over the world with Nigeria and its artists at the forefront of the musical explosion. Now every artist from Beyonce to Ed Sheeran uses the musical style in their music.
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2020 The Nigerian army, the world’s fourth largest, seems to be winning the battle against the insurgents of Boko Haram in the north-east of the country.
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SPECIAL FEATURE
OCTOBER 2020
The Nurse and Midwife Behind the
Mask
34 | THE VOICE OCTOBER 2020
Special supplement: Nurses Behind The Mask
My 43 years in the NHS A CHAMPION FOR THE NHS: Yvonne Coghill was awarded a CBE in 2018 for commitment to equality and diversity in the NHS
Despite setbacks and periods of self-doubt, she has gone on to become one of the NHS’ biggest heroes. Here, Yvonne Coghill reflects on what has been an incredible career dedicated to helping others
O
N OCTOBER 10, 1977, along with 23 other young hopefuls, I stood in the hall of the school of nursing at Central Middlesex Hospital to be greeted by Mr Adigun, a proud Nigerian man who was at the time head of nursing. It was the beginning of my 43-year career in the NHS. I wish could tell him now how very much I admired him. In truth he must have been pretty spectacular to have risen to the heights he did as a black man at that time in the ‘70s. I guess I knew that racism existed but it had not filtered into my psyche at that time and I was largely ignorant and unaware of the profound effect it has on people and would ultimately have on me during my career. If I knew then what I know now, I would have afforded him much more respect. My three years as a student nurse were relatively happy ones, I was grateful to have secured a place in London after applying to several of the wellknown hospitals and not being accepted, reasons unknown, living in the nurses home on Barretts Green Road, NW10 was a blast. There were nurses from all over the world there, the smell of delicious and exotic foods always permeated the corridors and there was always someone to talk to. Getting the second and then third stripe on my hat was a big deal and I remember the pride I felt completing my total ward
I began to wonder if there was something wrong with me management assessment and being able to ‘hold the keys’. Looking back, those were wonderful days full of light and laughter, the odd exam aside, it was relatively stress-free. In 1981, I left Central Middlesex after being a staff nurse on wards A2, a female orthopaedic ward and D4, cardio thoracic.
DIFFERENT
I was a staff nurse and had been accepted to do my post registration mental health training at St Bernard’s Hospital Ealing. It was here that I met my husband of 36 years, Derek. He was a post registration student nurse and I had just qualified as a staff nurse in psychiatric nursing. The NHS was very different at that time – there were no Trusts or commissioners. It was a time when we had nursing officers and senior nursing officers, we had clinical teachers and nursing schools not universities. I was paid to be a nurse; I did not incur huge debts to go to university to become one. I was not aware at that time the NHS was only 35 years old, a relatively young
institution. I followed the path of most duel qualified nurses and decided to move out in the community as a Health Visitor, this was where I believe I learned so much about life about how people live and the support that many families need just to get by. I worked in the North West London area for many years as a health visitor, family planning nurse, community practice teacher and locality manager. I was the board nurse for Harrow West PCG and so enjoyed working with my GP colleagues to make a difference for the population of Harrow West. Along with my clinical work, I acquired my Master’s degree. It was only when I decided that I wanted to be a senior nurse and started to apply for posts that I began to realise that there was an issue about me. After applying for five senior posts and being unsuccessful for each, I began to wonder if there was something wrong with me. My self-esteem and confidence took a real nose dive and after a lot of soul searching I decided to leave the NHS. Two things happened that changed the shape of my career. I was selected by the then CEO and permanent secretary of the NHS, Sir Nigel Crisp, to be his mentee and private secretary and I went on the King’s Fund senior managers programme. Together these experiences changed the course of my career and my life. Nigel Crisp, now Lord Crisp of Eaglescliffe, had just launched
the Leadership Race Equality Action Plan and was looking for a black person to mentor. I was fortunate enough to be chosen – and this is where my career at national level began.
INFLUENCE
At the same time I was a participant on the King’s fund senior managers programme, which taught me to see exactly who I am. For the first time I understood influence and power, inclusion and exclusion. I began to understand race and the inequalities inherent in our society. The last 16 years of my career have been spent leading various programmes and projects designed to help people
from non-white backgrounds to have a better experience of the NHS, programmes like the National Breaking Through Programme and the Workforce Race Equality Standard implementation programme. The path took me slightly away from nursing – however, I am a nurse to my core and was happy to work along three of our chief nursing officers, Dame Chris Beasley, Jane Cummings and Ruth May in various roles, and in 2018 I was elected to the position of deputy president of the Royal College of Nursing. As I am set to retire this year, I see that there is still work to be done. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the country
the true value of our non-white staff. They are at the forefront of the outbreak, selflessly taking care of others, knowing full well that they are more susceptible to the virus than their white counterparts. Thanks to the work that has been done, I am hopeful that our voice will be heard, I look back on my career with pride. It hasn’t always been an easy journey but it has been a very interesting one – and one that I am so glad I had. I am so pleased to be leaving the NHS in the hands of thousands and thousands of inspirational people, people that work tirelessly day after day to ensure our population receives a high-quality service.
CARING AND COMMITTED: From left, Yvonne as a young child; with Lord Nigel Crisp; at the Royal College of Nursing’s Annual Congress in 2018; celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Windrush landing in 2018
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OCTOBER 2020 THE VOICE | 35
‘What Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole mean to me’
Special supplement
News
Here Holly Henry, 2020 Project Officer at The Florence Nightingale Museum, explains how a BA in History was the catalyst for a career in celebrating two of history’s most iconic nurses
I
T WAS whilst studying a BA in History that I first considered a career in museums. After graduating I started front of house at the National Portrait Gallery and fell in love with visitor engagement. After various front of house roles I left the sector to gain administrative and project management experience, fully intending to come back. Upon returning to the sector I knew I wanted to help others to overcome hurdles that I first encountered when starting my career, rather than feeling forced out due to lack of opportunities. The lack of diversity amongst people progressing within the sector made me determined to do what I could to change this. I am passionate about widening access to the arts and involving communities. My final year study focused on how museums can create genuine long-lasting relation-
My mum is a nurse and I have always been inspired by her ships with diverse communities. When I saw a role at the Florence Nightingale Museum co-ordinating volunteering and community engagement, it sounded perfect.
CELEBRATE
The museum was embarking on a National Lottery Heritage Funded project to celebrate Florence Nightingale’s bicentenary and the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife in 2020. This project would shine a light on the life, work and legacy of Florence Nightingale, celebrate nurses through time
and the nursing profession today. More importantly, Mary Seacole would also be celebrated. I was excited to be a part of this coming from a BAME background and understanding the BAME contribution to nursing. My mum is a nurse and she views her career as a vocation and is incredibly passionate about nursing and caring for people in the community. I have always been inspired by her.
LEGACIES
Coming from a BAME background, I am so glad that Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole are now on the school curriculum. The lives and legacies of Nightingale and Seacole were brought to my attention during my front of house role at the National Portrait Gallery. Mary Seacole caught my attention as the only black portrait in a room of white faces. I was moved when I learnt how Seacole travelled independently to the Crimean War and set up a base to treat soldiers.
AWARE
A SPECIAL SACRIFICE: Mary Seacole travelled independently to the Crimean War to help wounded soldiers
Having worked in galleries, I have always loved Jerry Barrett’s The Mission of Mercy, Florence Nightingale: Receiving The Wounded At Scutari. I knew of Nightingale’s achievements during the Crimean war and that she went on to become the founder of modern nursing. It was not until starting at the Florence Nightingale Museum however that I became aware of all of
A PASSION FOR THE PAST: Holly Henry takes great joy in teaching others about nursing history her other achievements; starting a training school for nurses, designing hospitals, pioneering statistics, improving sanitation conditions in the British Army and in workhouses. I see both Nightingale and Seacole as great role models and enjoy telling their stories in the museum, although it frustrates me that many people think they were enemies. This was not the case. They barely
sector. Where there were parts of the application process that I was told could be a barrier, I removed them. I made it clear that we could be flexible to all needs. In the end I successfully recruited a volunteer team of all ages, genders, ethnicities and backgrounds.
DIVERSE
I have worked to bring the museum to the local and hugely
We could not have predicted that the year of the nurse would be such an unprecedented and challenging time for workers knew each other. Nightingale did not block Seacole from joining her and both deserve to be celebrated during this momentous year. My first task at the museum was to set up the volunteer programme. I made it my mission to recruit diversely and to change the way people saw both Nightingale and Seacole. I spoke to volunteer centres in different boroughs, volunteer manager networks, community leaders and friends and colleagues in and out of the
diverse community. I have represented the museum at community events and developed relationships and collaborations with community groups and local history societies. I helped with community consultation, design and distribution of our pop-up Nightingale in 200 Objects, People and Places exhibition which has toured hospitals, and arts and community venues across the country. It has been a privilege to tell the story of Florence Nightin-
gale and Mary Seacole and celebrate nurses. Many of our planned bicentenary events have been affected by the pandemic. We could not have predicted that the year of the nurse would be such an unprecedented and challenging time for nurses and healthcare workers and I continue to be so appreciative of them all. We need to remember that BAME nurses and midwives have been at the forefront of the pandemic much like Mary Seacole was during the Crimean War and like her, they are selfless in their sacrifice to care for others.
IMMENSE
We are working hard at the museum to ensure that despite COVID-19 affecting our plans to celebrate Florence, we can still shine a light on the incredible NHS and healthcare workers across the world, as well as celebrate the immense contribution of all nurses during 2020. To find out more about volunteering at the museum contact hollyh@florence-nightingale. co.uk. Learn more about both Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole at florence-nightingale. co.uk/200exhibits
48 | THE VOICE OCTOBER 2020
News
Teaching the diverse, rich history of Wales
Professor and award-winning writer Professor Charlotte Williams to lead focus group to ensure BAME presence in nation’s school curriculum
IMPORTANT ROLE: Professor Charlotte Williams will help the Welsh government improve the teaching of BAME issues
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ROFESSOR CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS will lead a new working group which will help the Welsh government improve the teaching of themes relating to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities in all parts of the school curriculum. Professor Williams accepted an invitation from education minister Kirsty Williams to chair the new ‘Communities, contributions and cynefin: BAME experiences and the new curriculum’ group. The group will present their initial findings in the autumn, and a full report in the spring. In 2007, Professor Williams was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for services to ethnic minorities and equal opportunities in Wales. Professor Williams said: “I’m delighted and honoured to be leading the working group in advancing this step change towards integrating black and minority ethnic history, identity and culture into the everyday learning of every child in Wales. “The goal is that the new curriculum will become a shining example of resourcing and enabling broad engagement in learning and teaching with BAME contributions past and present. “The challenge is to ensure that black and minority ethnic peoples have a presence across the new Welsh curriculum, so that within all of the areas of learning and experience we can
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It is about reimagining learning and teaching across all elements hear the sound of their voices, know of their experience, history and contributions. “This requires appropriate resourcing because we want all teachers in Wales to be able to rethink their materials and feel confident in the ways of delivering them in order to reflect this presence. It’s a very exciting prospect. In this way our curriculum in Wales will ultimately be reflective of our common experience of a vibrant, inclusive, multicultural society. We have a rich history in Wales, built on difference and diversity.
PROGRESSIVE
“This isn’t about adding an element of black and minority ethnic history here and there in the new curriculum, but about reimagining learning and teaching across all the elements of the curriculum so that it reflects a Wales that is, and always has been, ethnically diverse, internationalist in its outlook and progressive in its aspirations.” Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford said: “Our diversity is one of our strengths as a nation and our many histories have combined to shape Wales
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today. I’m delighted Professor Williams will be leading this important piece of work and I look forward to seeing the group’s recommendations. “The working group will complete a review of learning resources currently available to support the teaching of themes relating to BAME communities and ‘cynefin’ across all parts of the curriculum.”
EXPERIENCES
The Welsh word ‘cynefin’ loosely translates as ‘habitat’ or ‘place’, but also conveys a sense that human interactions are influenced and determined by personal and collective experiences, such as through stories or music. Education minister Kirsty Williams said: “I’m very pleased Professor Williams has agreed to chair the working group. I look forward to receiving the group’s recommendations on learning resources to support the teaching of themes relating to BAME communities. “We must understand and analyse our own cynefin, and make those connections across our communities, nation and the world.” In 2003, Professor Williams won Wales Book of the Year for her autobiographical novel Sugar and Slate. In 2014, Wales Arts Review published an essay by Dr Lisa Sheppard of Cardiff University examining the importance of Professor Williams. She wrote: “Charlotte Williams has done much in recent years to inscribe the black voice on to the literary and cultural map of Wales.”
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OCTOBER 2020 | THE VOICE
TOP SPORTS COVERAGE 24/7 VOICE-ONLINE.CO.UK/SPORT
OF SPORT NEWSPAPER
DRIVING FOR CHANGE
Lewis Hamilton teams up with Royal Academy of Engineering to inspire diversity across Formula One
FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT: Lewis Hamilton wants more black stars to take centre stage in the world of Formula One
The Hamilton Commissioners
• Karen Chouhan, lead equality officer with a specialism in race policy for the National Education Union • Jeremy Crook, chief executive of the Black Training and Enterprise Group • Tracey Crouch MP, former Sports Minister and Conservative Party politician • Dr Nike Folayan, co-founder and chair of the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers, AFBE-UK • Professor Alice Gast, president of Imperial College London • Mark Hamlin, chair of Project 44 • Dr Zubaida Haque, former interim director of the Runnymede Trust • Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon, co-founder of Stemettes and trustee at the Institute for the Future of Work • George Imafidon, pictured right, co-founder of Motivez, One Young World Ambassador and Royal Academy of Engineering scholar • Glen Lambert, head of School of Construction, Science and Engineering at College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London • Professor David Mba, Pro-Vice Chancellor Research and Enterprise, and Dean of the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Media at De Montfort University • Izzy Obeng, managing director at Foundervine and non-executive director for Capital Enterprise • Chi Onwurah MP, Member of Parliament representing Newcastle upon Tyne Central and also Shadow Minister Digital, Science & Technology • Martin Whitmarsh, former CEO of the McLaren Formula One Team, Chairman of BAR Technologies Limited
By Rodney Hinds
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IX-TIME Formula One world champion, Lewis Hamilton MBE and the Royal Academy of Engineering have announced the Board of Commissioners for The Hamilton Commission, a research project that will work to identify the key barriers to recruitment and progression of black people in UK motorsport, and provide actionable recommendations to overcome them. The Hamilton Commission will be co-chaired by the
world champion himself and Dr Hayaatun Sillem CBE, chief executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering. The Board of Commissioners is an independent group made up of 14 experts and industry leaders from within the UK who represent a range of perspectives on the challenge. The Commissioners have been specially selected to represent a wide range of expertise spanning critical areas of influence including motorsport, engineering, schools, colleges and universities, community and youth groups, as well as major
UK political parties. Each of the Commissioners will bring valuable expertise, knowledge and experience from their re-
search findings and help identify the key challenges and opportunities facing young black people entering STEM careers, particu-
“Since I began my professional racing career in Formula One, 14 years ago, I was the only driver of colour. Sadly, that is still the case” spective fields to The Hamilton Commission. Their responsibilities will be to review and inform the research methodology; to examine the re-
larly in UK motorsport; and to advise on the final actions and recommendations that result from the research. Record-chasing Hamilton
said: “Since I began my professional racing career in Formula One, 14 years ago, I was the only driver of colour and to this day, sadly, that is still the case. However, what is more concerning is that there are still very few people of colour across the sport as a whole. “In F1, our teams are much bigger than the athletes that front them, but representation is insufficient across every skill set – from the garage to the engineers in the factories and design departments. We are dedicated to this cause and together, we will make a change.”
The first meeting of the Board of Commissioners took place last month, where the Commissioners shared their initial insights and thoughts on the research plan with Hamilton and Sillem. The Board will meet quarterly to discuss and inform the latest Commission research.