Throughout October, to celebrate Black History Month, we hosted a social media takeover showcasing a different member of Ipswich’s Black community each day. The DIY videos consisted of the community talking about their work and their views on our town of Ipswich as well as some of them offering insight on what changes they would like to see.
The takeover was organised and curated by Angelle Joseph, who recently took on the role of Diversity and Engagement Lead at ICM. A vitally important role, as Angelle has explained herself:
“With the plight of marginalised communities across the world it has become more important for me to work with these people locally especially those that look like me, because representation matters now more than ever. I want to bring that [creating new experiences for young people] back across South Street and engage more with these people, get them involved and give them the experience, knowledge and sometimes just fun, that we all take for granted in assuming they already have.”
This social media takeover is just the very beginning of the work Angelle will be doing, and we can’t wait to share more with you going forward. Here’s what Angelle had to say about the takeover:
“In the UK, October marks the Black History Month celebration and we feel like this year is more important than ever to be transparent and open for conversations of the diaspora of Black people in our community. Throughout the years ICM have looked up to so many incredible talents from the Black community and been privileged to work alongside some of the most hardworking people our community has to offer. Of course this was so hard to whittle down to 31 people because there are hundreds of fantastic and inspirational people. This is just the beginning!”
Some of the names include businesswoman Remi Morrison, a videographer and creative Director, Curtis Blanc, mentor, sound engineer and CEO of Radical Lounge and Zelly Lisanework, poet, LGBTQ activist and co-founder of House of Guramayle an Ethiopian LGBT+ advocacy and campaigning organisation.
If you missed them on our social media pages throughout the month you can now watch all of the videos back on our YouTube channel on our Black History Month 2020 playlist.