“The main pressure that we feel is the need to chip away pieces of our identity, just to feel like we belong.”

Katiann Rocha has experienced discrimination because of her hair, often hearing comments such as “messy”, “unkempt” and “wild”.

The 16-year-old is a co-founder of the Halo Code – a guide for schools and workplaces to prevent discrimination around hairstyles or texture.

“It will allow for black people to be fully accepted in an environment that celebrates their natural hair and styles, because we’ve been discriminated against it for so long,” she tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

The Halo Code explicitly protects students and staff at school and work with natural hair and protective hairstyles associated with their racial, ethnic and cultural identities. More