Introducing: Black History Year Create, a new decolonised student-focused initiative

Introducing Black History Year Create - a programme funded by the University’s Quintin Hogg Trust: first decolonised ‘career-ready’ student programme written for Black students.

What is Black History Year Create

The Black History Year (BHY) initiative has allowed to run many events with prestigious speakers to share their knowledge and insight on topics such as industry specific resilience, creativity and wellbeing.

Whilst the BHY event programme has sparked inspiration and has opened up new routes of collaboration with an extremely connected online community – BHY colleagues wanted to create an initiative specifically for Black students to address disparities in this population. Rather than a one-off event, they wanted a longer-term grassroots initiative to really be able to measure cognitive distance travelled, offer support, and create journeys for these students.
What was born from this is a six-month, intensive career-defining programme called 'Black History Year Create'.

The aim of the programme is to engage with and provide opportunities to Black students at Level 6 across the University, focusing on three tenets: building confidence, visibility and individuality as they prepare to transition out of Westminster and to the world of work. This movement is led with a decolonised approach; taking into account tokenism, microaggressions and systemic racism.

About the Programme

The six-month core programme will consist of five workshops/insight days running face-to-face with some online activities and independent study. As well as an offer of one-to-one mentoring for participants, it will be covering topics such as personal branding, tokenism and effective storytelling. Sessions will take place from January 2023, culminating in a celebration event in July 2023.

This programme offers a bursary of up to £1,000* upon completion of the course to focus on continued professional development in terms of upskilling and seeking employment. This will be a decolonised, tailored approach for Black students entering the workplace.

Who is the programme for

All Level 6 students, who identify as Black, are invited to take part.
Students can also be part of the Programme Board, enabling BHY Create to be an opportunity designed for Black students by Black students.

Application process

Eligibility criteria: Black heritage Level 6 students from all Colleges.

Applications close on Sunday 23 October, 11:59pm. Interviews will be run on the week commencing 31 October.

Meet the board session

A ‘Meet the board’ session will take place on Monday 3 October for students, where we field any questions and help to guide students through the application process.

The student session will be run online via Microsoft Teams as follows:
• Monday 3 October, 12 noon to 1pm

The link to the event will be sent after registration, closer to the date of the event.