Black History Month is an important and busy month for us here at Anerley Town Hall! Here's a round-up of all the activities we had going on.

First up is our Youth Club which took part in quizzes and flag making. We were making the flags of Caribbean and African heritage such as Trinidad and Tobago, DR Congo, Nigeria and Jamaica.

We also made and shared jollof rice, a traditional African rice meal most popular within Western African Communities. Dylan Sackman, our Youth Intern at CPCT, said 'this was the highlight of the month for me as the young people really enjoyed it and got involved in making and preparing the meal by cutting up onions and chicken into smaller pieces and applying seasoning to the food. It was good to see the young people who were hesitant to eat it at first, ate it and then came back for more! The youth club also had an evening of music from black artists, celebrating successful black people who created different types of music. We finished off the month with carrot cake using a traditional Caribbean recipe!

Our Youth Art Club also got involved in creating some amazing pieces of art inspired by the Ndebele tribe's houses and decoration traditions by designing and decorating their own. The children designed their houses and some people's costumes/characters. The colours and patterns used to decorate them have a connection to your own likes/dislikes and interests. I'm sure you'll agree with Carlos, our art teacher that the images are beautiful and that 'they did some very nice examples'.

Our 60Up club for Elders, got together to celebrate Black History Month, with a celebration of poetry.

We had poetry read by Dahlia Lewis. Firstly 'Easta bun' by Valerie Bloom MBE. Valerie is a Jamaican-born poet and novelist based in the UK. Secondly, Gay Paree by Louise Bennet or Miss Lou OM, OJ, MBE. Louise was a Jamaican poet, folklorist, writer, and educator.

We were then very privileged to have Doreen McKenzie read from her book. We then sang songs together, before a raffle and a Caribbean lunch. Everyone had a lovely time.

Finally, a small team at Crystal Palace Community Trust teamed up with the simply amazing Monique and Raymond.

Monique started the Aequalis campaign and together we produced our first-ever CPCT podcast!

The Aequalis campaign seeks equal representation in healthcare training resources. Can you believe that black and brown skin tones aren't currently represented in all training resources?! This is utter madness and frankly dangerous.

Listen to our podcast here https://youtu.be/7kbWCu85Od8 as Monique talks to me, Lucy, about the campaign and her experiences while training to be a midwife.

Raymond, a Trustee at CPCT, founded the Ballers Club community, a community organisation which works to help support young people to maximise their potential through sport, media and fashion. He strongly believes that 'youth is the future' and the more time and resources spent on trying to help them reach their full potential the stronger the community foundations will be.

Please follow Aequalis and Ballers too! All their details are below.

Aequalis social media information Instagram - aequalis_hce

Facebook - Aequalis: Equal Representation in Healthcare Education

First podcast episode:
Colour in the classroom with Monique, Liz and Deanne https://open.spotify.com/episode/6HPmsFcpBhRflmdg2EzPIb?si=XE8aJ8SfRcq7pRYfSL9Fow&utm_source=whatsapp

Blueprint Plaza vodcast - www.youtube.com/channel/UC8PxU...

Instagram - @Theballersclubpodcast

Twitter - @Theballersclubpodcast

Spotify - The Ballers Club podcast

Tik tok - Theballersclubpodcast