Working Together To Make Impactful Change
Our MA Education CIC includes youth-led projects, community learning spaces and anti-racist research.
Leadership and Representation
Project Team
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@natashaclarkeart
https://www.natashaclarkeart.com/
Artist & Curator
I am a young biracial artist and curator from and living in Doncaster. My creative practices focus on representing marginalised groups and investigating themes round identity politics and dual heritage. My work often showcases black female beauty and power. Recent shows I have curated include ‘ArtFest:2020’, which exhibited over 20 artists from the BAME community and Leeds Arts University students.
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Lindsey Nkem is a University of Edinburgh and King's College London alumna currently working as a programme officer for the Royal Commonwealth Society. With the Society she works on projects supporting youth and civil society organisations in advocating for the reform of discriminatory colonial laws, engaging youth in developing social action projects to address community challenges, and coordinating the oldest essay writing competition for school-aged children.
Previously, Lindsey has worked to engage youth in international affairs, with the Government of Canada to champion new approaches to transparency and good governance, with the BME liberation campaign and international student representation in Edinburgh to advocate for better holistic services, and sat on the committee for the Resisting whiteness conference held in Edinburgh .
Lindsey believes that moving concepts of leadership and representation beyond box-ticking and expecting people to 'fit' a certain model of leadership will be incredibly important in continuing to support the growth, development, and wellbeing of young Black people as they navigate society. Through this project, she hopes to have challenging conversations toward reimagining leadership that allow more young people to stand in a power that is authentically theirs.
Decolonizing the Curriculum
Project Team - [PDF version available here]
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Tanatsei Gambura (she/they) is an intermedia artist and cultural practitioner working transnationally. As a producer, her interests lie in creating socially-engaged creative experiences that centre justice, care, and community. In the past, she has worked with Enthuse Afrika (Harare), the Anzisha Prize (Johannesburg), and Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh), amongst others.
At the University of Edinburgh, Tanatsei is a project coordinator for UncoverED, a Mastercard Foundation Scholar and a student on the BA. Hons Intermedia Art program. She is enthused by experimenting with frameworks for decolonising arts and education. In 2020, she was listed as one of top 10 students in the UK by Rare Recruitment's Rising Stars program, and received the Diana Award in 2019.
For this project, Tanatsei looks forward to co-developing a handbook documenting the experiences of young people in education. Key to this project is collaborating with and supporting youth to navigate colonially-informed curricula. As a coordinator, She hopes to contribute to building a resilient community and empowering people like herself to imagine themselves in new ways. It is important for her to create a lasting resource that can function as a guiding compass towards a radically different future.
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Ciao people! I'm Nico. I'm a 19 year old, student-athlete currently residing in south-east London. I have an Afro-Italian background, with the African being a mix of Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
This mixed African background is what initially connected me to the current work I'm doing in "decolonizing the curriculum". But now, having worked on this issue for around 2 years (which I know isn't that long) with the campaign that I co-founded, Fill In The Blanks, I've realized that regardless of background, if you're connected in any way to Britishness or British history, learning about colonialism and the British empire is something essential and necessary.
The world that we live in today was a direct impact of what happened during the days of colonization. We inherited the legacy of the British Empire, WE ourselves are its legacy, and it comes with a whole heap of benefits and perks but just as much, if not even more, an abundance of trauma, deadly ideologies, and an origin to the racist institutions of today. So, by blatantly ignoring, and denying the complete and full knowledge of the past of Britain, we are not addressing the origin of the issues of today's modern society. And how are we supposed to solve our society's issues if we don't even address their origins?
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
- Malcolm X
Our Youth-Led Projects
We have had the pleasure of collaborating with the following organisations & institutions.
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‘Tackling Racism Across the Leadership Pipeline in Sheffield’ was city-wide conference which brought together community members, professionals, organizational leads, and policy makers to discuss the deficit in representation across the leadership pipeline in the city. The conference highlighted key issues including un/conscious bias, racism within the workplace, barriers to progression and the impact on mental health. This was a solution- focused conference which drew several key recommendations that are highlighted in this report. The report is accompanied by a video of the conference.
Watch video
Download report here
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Although community- engaged research is increasingly promoted in literature and incentivised through funding opportunities; academic programmes often fail to prepare researchers for the critical ethical issues involved in doing this work. This lack of awareness and at times competence, unfavourably impacts the communities that are engaged. Where communities should be empowered and supported through research, they are more often than not ‘data banks’ that are ‘farmed’ for stories that do not return to them.
This workshop aims to increase researchers’ knowledge and felt experience of the ‘dos and don’ts’ of community-engaged research. A model of ‘community contracts’ will be outlined with four areas of focus: entering the community, working within the cultural and social realities of the community, shared dissemination, ethically leaving or staying. The workshop will explore the critical, ethical and power issues involved in doing this work. It is open to researchers at all levels.
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What does it mean to do research within a community to which you belong, whilst simultaneously holding the values and frameworks of the academy?
What does it mean to do research with a community to which you do not belong and how do you navigate and mitigate the impact of your positionality?
How do you navigate the ethics of coming in, being with and leaving or staying?
The insider/outside binary is often discussed in research to allow researchers to reflect on their positionalities and to recognise the boundaries. However, authors such as McNess, Arthur, and Crossley (2013) recognise that the workings of research are more complex and that the relationship between researcher and researched cannot be simplified in binary terms.
We need to re-envision the way we conceptualise being an inside, outside or in-between in the research process.
This workshop explores how we understand traditional boundaries such as language, ethnicity, gender, age etc. and the role of power in framing our positionalities. It will also explore understandings of ontological, epistemological and disciplinary boundaries and how these underpin supposed insider/outside positioning during the research process.
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What is anti-oppressive practice and why is it important? This action-focused workshop offers a space of challenge, reflection and necessary discomfort.
Participants are invited to question the taken for granted, to recognise the links between structures and everyday lived experiences, and to unpack how they have been socially positioned.
There is no space that can be ‘safe’ for all, particularly given the nature of what will be discussion, so this will be an interactive space that centres on respect and compassion.
This space aims to be as inclusive and as accessible as possible, but if you have specific requirements, please contact the organiser before you book a place.
These activities are most effective in small groups and so spaces are limited to just 12 for these sessions.
The workshop will be facilitated by Dr Muna Abdi, an Education & Equity consultant, Researcher and Well Being Coach.