Asher Craig

Deputy Mayor of Bristol

Asher Craig is the current Deputy Mayor of Bristol with responsibility for Communities, Equalities and Public Health, and an experienced Labour Councillor. She has much experience in strategic programme design and development, equality and diversity, transitional planning and change management and has led and chaired a number of major partnerships and organisations at local, regional and national level. She has over 30 years’ experience as a community activist, leader and management consultant championing the needs of the voiceless, with a particular emphasis on the social-economic development of BAME and under-represented communities working in the fields of employment and training, education and skills, recruitment, advocacy, and equality and diversity within local government and third sector. She is passionate about understanding how to create transformational change within public sector organisations.

Angela Browne

Founder of Nourished Collective

Angie Browne is a leadership coach, an experienced leader and former Deputy CEO and Headteacher with a background in primary, secondary and special education, and delivers training on a variety of leadership programmes. She is skilled in Coaching, Executive Coaching, Inclusion leadership, CPD and training, Public Speaking, and Teacher Training. She writes and speaks about her passion for developing leaders and creating schools that nourish the children and adults within them and provides leaders with the inspiration and tools to do this. She is passionate about diversity in school leadership.

Aisha Thomas

Presenter and Assistant Principal

Aisha Thomas is currently an Assistant Principal in an inner city secondary school. She has worked in a number of education roles in the last ten years and developed her expertise in diversity, youth violence, safeguarding and PSHE.

She has also founded Representation Matters Ltd following the development of her work and knowledge in Race in Education.

Check out her Tedxbristol-2019 talk here : https://youtu.be/-X-taPvKWbY

Her campaign #representationmatters is simple. We all deserve to be represented.

Want to join the mission?

https://sinaworldwide.com/collections/representationmatters

Nura Aabe

Founder of Autism Independence

Nura Aabe is a TEDx speaker, current PHD candidate with the University of Bristol and founder of Autism Independence, a community organisation which aims to tackle the stigma of autism and raise awareness of it amongst the British Somali community, working with families and local authorities to help transform the lives of children with autism by eliminating stigma while mentoring parents to engage with the system to achieve the best outcome for their children. She has created a network that gives a voice to a before underrepresented ethnic community. She has also published papers and shared her story in public talks and a short play created in cooperation with other Somali women from the UK and the Netherlands. Her work was publicly recognised by former Prime Minister, Theresa May, for making positive changes in the community.

Julia Skinner

Founder of 100 Word Challenge & award-winning blog The Head's Office

Julia Skinner is an experienced educator who having retired from headship is now working in a number of areas to support leaders in schools. Among her areas of expertise are:

• School governance - building capacity & expertise on boards

• Coaching school leaders - providing a listening ear in a safe space together with some blue-sky thinking

• Supporting early career teachers - signposting

• Creative writing - 100 Word Challenge, a weekly writing project linked to blogging with contributors around the world

Julia has recently been supporting BAME educators to move to leadership positions as well as supporting the diversity of governing boards. She is happy to travel & enjoys speaking & running workshops.

Sibusiso Tshabalala

Founder of Cognitive Paths, Project Lead for the One Bristol Curriculum

Sibusiso Tshabalala was never great at Maths or Science until introduced to practical philosophy in school by a black RE teacher. Having a black teacher in an otherwise white school made him look forward to the lesson and his challenges of Maths and Science came into sharp focus as he realised that he couldn’t grasp some of the concepts he was teaching like cosmology, biology and astrology. Thus, he began to enquire more into STEM subjects, indirectly improving his grades in Maths and Science. The key reason that Sibusiso was drawn to his teacher was because he was teaching about African Philosophy and Theology and this was important to him. His teacher's presence has lasted within him and shaped his attitude towards education and attainment. Therefore, as a speaker of education, Sibusiso speaks passionately about the influence of black teachers / practitioners and curriculum as a pathway to increasing student engagement and academic attainment. He uses his lived experience to engage with students and his experience of facilitating the One Bristol Curriculum to support teachers to implement a diverse learning environment.

Professor Nandini Chaterjee

Associate Professor

Prof. Nandini Chatterjee is Associate Professor of Imperial/Colonial History at the University of Exeter. She writes and teaches about the history of the British empire in South Asia, and also about the Mughal empire. She is a published author of two books on these topics. She is also Director of the Exeter South Asia Centre bringing together academics across multiple disciplines engaging in research relating to the wider Indian subcontinent and global South Asian communities with their associated diasporas.

Tayera Khan

Lead Officer Gwynedd Council

Tayera Khan is a Lead Officer for the SVPRS at Gwynedd Council. She provides advice, support, deliver workshops and training to professionals and various organisations on forced marriages, HBV, domestic violence, and mental health within the BME community. Currently tackling issues around Islamophobia and hate crime. Welsh is her main language.

Mymuna Soleman

Founder of The Privilege Cafe

Mymuna Soleman is of Somali origin and was born and bred in Cardiff, Wales. She has a huge passion for equality and diversity but, most importantly, equal representation for Muslim women of colour. She is the CEO and founder of The Privilege Cafe, a virtual cafe that is a safe space where patrons discuss all things privilege. It’s an opportunity for one to feel empowered, emboldened but most importantly to learn to use their privilege for good.

Henry Chan

Manager of Local Authority Safeguarding in Education Team

Henry Chan manages a team of School Safeguarding Advisors in Bristol who facilitate education leaders to comply with their statutory functions. The team specialises in systems leadership by developing skills, knowledge and practice to keep children and learners safe. Henry chairs the Education Reference Group of the Local Safeguarding Partnership to assist with turning strategy into practice. Key skills include development of: social leadership models; effective safeguarding cultures; inclusive practice; anti-discriminatory practice; and anti-oppressive practice on a systemic and practical basis.

Abu-Bakr Madden Al-Shabazz

Sociologist, Historian, Social Psychologist and Education Consultant

Abu-Bakr Madden Al-Shabazz is a multidisciplinary subject specialist with over 26 years of experience. He has been a visiting lecturer at the Universities of Cardiff, Bristol, Swansea, Newport, South Wales, Cardiff Metropolitan and Exeter in subjects ranging from Education to Multiculturalism. He was featured in a documentary school resource called ‘Wales Untold’ as a training tool to help teachers in Wales to blend Black/African historical studies within the Welsh Curriculum. As a lecturer at Cardiff University for many years, he designed curriculum, taught modules, trained and assessed his own degree programmes in: Dyslexia & Learning Softwares, Education Psychology, Childhood Development, Race and Genetic Science, Multicultural Britain, Moorish Culture and their scientific educational development in Europe, Ancient African Civilisations and The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA & UK. He has also been a Deputy Headteacher of an independent school and a Pastoral Counsellor for KS3 & KS4. Abu-Bakr is the Director for Acap Academy C.I.C., providing education and training programmes for educators, students and parents. He is also a SEN Tutor for students with behavioural and learning difficulties for a local authority in South Wales.

Catherine Brennan

Co-founder of Better Bilingual

Catherine Brennan is passionate about multilingualism and race equality, and has extensive experience of collaborating with educational settings to secure the best possible outcomes for children and young people of BAME heritage - and those with English as an Additional Language (EAL) in particular. Originally a primary school teacher in East London, Catherine then worked for Bristol’s Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS) for many years, to support EAL pupils (including refugees) aged 3-18 to fulfil their potential. In 2016, Catherine co-founded Better Bilingual, an independent education consultancy based in Bristol, which champions pupils’ and families' multilingualism and empowers schools to embed inclusive EAL pedagogy to enhance academic outcomes. An avid supporter of the One Bristol Curriculum, Catherine is also an Associate for the EAL Academy and an accreditor for the EAL Quality Mark.