Diversity Days 2019

In February 2019, the Naz Legacy Foundation organised for sixty six young people to visit the ‘First Waves’ exhibition in Parliament with Scarlett Crawford, the Artist in Residence for the Race Relations Acts.

The exhibition celebrated fifty years since the first Race Relations Act was introduced in UK Parliament. One of the key objectives of the exhibition was to capture the stories of generations who had been directly impacted by the Race Relations Acts, but who may have had little opportunity to have their voices heard in Westminster. Participants from communities across England, Wales, and Scotland shared their experiences, both good and bad, so that audiences could explore the personal, social, and political legacy of the Race Relations Acts today.

The young people then took part in a Q&A session with Nusrat Ghani MP (then Minister for Transport), Dawn Butler MP (then Shadow Minister for Equality and Women) and Jo Swinson MP (then Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats). The young people ended the day with a visit to the public gallery to witness democracy in action in the House of Commons and also enjoyed a visit to 10 Downing Street.

The Naz Legacy Foundation organised for fifteen young people to visit the Telegraph newsrooms on Monday 11th November 2019. Recent studies have found that 94% of UK journalists are white (compared to 87% of the working population in the UK and 70% of the working population in London) and that 55% are male. Additionally, a Sutton Trust report found that 51% of leading print journalists had attended private school, compared with just 7% of the British population. Media organisations, like the Daily Telegraph, are keen to encourage more BAME young people to enter the profession and hosted a Diversity Day to show young people what a working newsroom looked like, to explore the different pathways into journalism and to meet and question working journalists.

The young people were given a tour of the newsroom, spoke to journalists and engaged in a Q&A exploring routes into journalism and what opportunities are available to them. Here are some of their comments:

“I learnt how newsrooms work, what they’re like. Also, it helped me gain knowledge on work-life in this industry, and it is very exciting” (Female, aged 14)
“It broadened my knowledge on the many different job opportunities available in the journalism community” (Female, aged 13)

“I learnt about the diversity being brought into journalism” (Female, aged 14)

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