Sunny and Bhupinder Gill have become the first South Asian brothers to be appointed on the same officiating team for an English Football League game.
Bhupinder will be the assistant and Sunny the fourth official for the Championship match between Bristol City and Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
The pair, who are Sikh, are the sons of former EFL referee Jarnail Singh, who retired in 2010.
“It’s a proud moment for the family,” Bhupinder told BBC Sport. More
A political and equalities activist has become the first black man to be elected head of an Oxbridge college.
Lord Simon Woolley, founding director of campaign group Operation Black Vote, will be the next principal of Cambridge University’s Homerton College.
The former Equality and Human Rights Commissioner said it was a “must-have role”.
He grew up on a Leicester council estate and left school without any A-levels.
The cross-party peer, who was fostered and adopted as a child, later returned to education and gained a degree and a masters.
He is the third black person to be elected as head of a college at Oxford or Cambridge. More
When Uncharted: The Lost Legacy was released this year, it gained a lot of attention – not because it is the latest instalment for a popular franchise, it stood out for another reason.
The game was set in India, had two lead women, and one of them, Nadine Ross, is a black South African.
Other big releases this year include Assassins Creed Origins, which is set in Egypt with an African protagonist, while Star Wars Battlefront II used the likeness and voice of Janina Gavankar, an actress with part-Indian heritage.
But speaking to BBC Asian Network, Jo Twist, chief executive for Ukie, the trading body for the UK’s games industry, said there was still a long way to go before video games could be truly representative of the gaming audience. More
The Church of England has appointed its first black female bishop.
The Rev Dr Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chaplain to the speaker of the House of Commons, has been named as the new Bishop of Dover.
Dr Hudson-Wilkin, who was born in Jamaica, said she aimed to ensure that “hope, love and justice remains at the heart of our changed lives together”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said he was “absolutely delighted” by her appointment.
The Most Rev Justin Welby said she was “one of the most influential and effective ministers… through her long service as Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons”.
Dr Hudson-Wilkin, who is also a chaplain to the Queen, led prayers at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in May 2018. More
October is Black History Month and with that in mind we have chosen Elizabeth Anionwu as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month.
Elizabeth was inspired to become a nurse at the young age of four because, whilst a ‘wonderful nursing nun’ treated her childhood eczema in an expert and sensitive manner.
Elizabeth has put in a substantial amount of her life into her work as a nurse, health visitor and tutor working with black and minority ethnic communities in London and in 1979 helped to establish the first nurse-led UK Sickle & Thalassaemia Screening and Counselling Centre. She has chaired several projects for the NHS Sickle and Thalassaemia Screening Programme and in 2004 she was presented with the Royal College of Nursing Fellowship (FRCN) for her work in the development of nurse-led sickle cell and thalassaemia counselling services and education and leadership in transcultural nursing.
In 1988 she was awarded a PhD from the Institute of Education, University College London and from 1990-1997 she worked at the Institute of Child Health, UCL as a Lecturer then Senior Lecturer in Community Genetic Counselling. She has written extensively and is a co-author of the book ‘The Politics of Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia’ published in 2001.
In 1997 Elizabeth was appointed as Dean of the School of Adult Nursing and Professor of Nursing at the University of West London and in 1999 she established and was Head of the Mary Seacole Centre for Nursing Practice until her retirement in 2007. The university then honoured her with the award of Emeritus Professor of Nursing. In 2001 she was awarded a CBE for services to nursing.
Elizabeth was vice-chairperson of the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal from its launch in November 2003. The statue was unveiled in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital in June 2016 and Elizabeth is now a Life Patron of the new charity, the Mary Seacole Trust.
She was honoured with a Damehood in the 2017 for her services to nursing and the Mary Seacole Statue Appeal. The Queen’s Nursing Institute awarded her a Fellowship (FQNI) in October 2017. In July 2018, as part of the celebrations for the 70th Anniversary of the National Health Service, Elizabeth was included in the list of the 70 most influential nurses and midwives in the history of the NHS.
She is a Patron of the Sickle Cell Society, the Nigerian Nurses Charitable Association (UK) and the Sickle & Thalassaemia Association of Nurses, Midwives & Associated Professionals (STANMAP).
To find out more about Elizabeth see here http://www.elizabethanionwu.co.uk/about-me/ To find out more about Black History Month see here https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/
During this inaugural week, our Vice-Chancellor Prof Jane Harrington made a pledge as part of The Big Promise – a commitment to action not just words.
I, Jane Harrington, promise to:
You can find out more about The Big Promise on the Race Equality Matters website.
“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
October is Black History Month and also on 16 October it is World Food Day. With that in mind we have chosen Marcus Rashford as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the month.
Marcus is a professional footballer who plays for Manchester United. He was bought by his mum who often struggled to afford food to provide meals for Marcus and his siblings.
The issue of food poverty for families and children had always therefore been something that Marcus was very keen to help with and he has been working with the charity FareShareUK to raise money to supply meals for 3 million vulnerable people. During the coronavirus lockdown the government insisted that food vouchers for families on free school meals would not be extended outside of term time so he decided to act.
He wrote an open letter to all MPs calling for the decision to be reversed. The letter drew on his own experiences growing up relying of free school meals and food banks. He asked that the government make the U turn to protect the lives of the most vulnerable which was not about politics but about humanity. In June 2020 it was confirmed that he had been successful in his quest and the government changed their mind and extended the scheme through the school holidays.
He has now formed a taskforce with some of the UK’s biggest food brands to continue the work to reduced child food poverty and backed proposals from the National Food Strategy, for an independent review of UK food policy. Marcus is confident that the group could help change lives for the better and is hoping that with a bigger team of experts he will be able to help more children.
To find out more about Marcus see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Rashford
To find out more about Black History Month see here https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/
To find out more about World Food Day see here http://www.national-awareness-days.com/world-food-day/
Four postboxes have been painted black to honour black Britons including Sir Lenny Henry and nursing pioneer Mary Seacole.
The Royal Mail postboxes – in London, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast – have been painted as part of Black History Month in October.
Each features a significant figure in the British black community and has a social media link.
Royal Mail says the aim is to help mark the success of black Britons. More
Khadjou Sambe, Senegal’s first female professional surfer, trains near her home in the district of Ngor – the westernmost point of the African continent.
I would always see people surfing and I’d say to myself: ‘But where are the girls who surf?'” says the 25-year-old.”I thought: ‘Why don’t I go surfing, represent my country, represent Africa, represent Senegal, as a black girl?'”
Reuters photojournalist Zohra Bensemra has documented Sambe’s training and her coaching of other girls and women. More