Tonight (Friday, 10 July) will see the first in a new series of online ‘Community Speaks’ talks led by young people aimed at discussing inequality, representation and diversity.
Ealing Council is proud to be supporting the talks, which will be led by young people who attend Bollo Brook Youth Centre in Acton. It will feature a mix of pre-recorded interviews, commentary by young people, showcasing and a live, socially-distanced panel debate with all interviewees at the end.
The Community Speaks talks will take place on a monthly basis with a different theme, exploring the realities of, and solutions to, societal and structural racism.
Tonight’s meeting can be viewed via livestream (Friday), between 6-7pm. As well as the young people from Bollo Brook, there will be representatives from community group Descendants, Wappy and Delve and will also feature special guests including entrepreneur Jamal Edwards MBE, and leader of Ealing Council, Councillor Julian Bell.
Anyone can log on to YouTube and follow the livestream: Either through this link http://youtu.be/rtM5zBhXNB0 or by typing in ‘Community Speaks: the arts’ on the YouTube site. It will also be available to watch on the site after the event.
To get in touch with the panellists, email communityspeaks2@gmail.com
Plans are already in place for the next event, and the theme is likely to centre around education and it will be hosted on its own YouTube channel.
Councillor Bell said: “These sessions are an opportunity for us as a council to learn, work with and listen to the communities; through an event owned by young people and supported by the council.
“This series of events is a commitment from the council to engage in discussion and to commit to actions. This maiden event is a step towards demonstrating our commitment to black and ethnic minority people in the borough.
“This is just one example. We are also working to develop a regular forum, and resources to educate people around representation and diversity, a communications framework to bring together and support the work of these organisations, and more diversity and leadership in governing schools.”
Community Speaks is the maiden event, themed on ‘The Arts’, and will launch into a conversation with the young people and community groups about the lack of diverse representation in our galleries/museums. It is also an opportunity to showcase creative responses to the arts – music, dance, film, poetry, artworks.
