"What originally led me to get into grooming… When I was 13 or 14 years old, we didn’t have a lot of money. I was tired of home hair cuts and never having good haircuts. I picked up the clippers and said I'm going to give myself a good haircut, it wasn't good at all but that’s how it all started."

“When a man has his hair cut, he feels better, more confident and enhanced. It positively affects his mood”

“Historically the barbershop has always been a safe place where people come to talk, a space for therapy. The chairs are comfortable, and people just feel relaxed and that opens them up a little bit. I know that in the position I am in I can be so much more than someone that just cuts your hair. When a barber says to you ‘how’s life going’ or anything along those lines, it just all flows out, almost like a bottle being turned upside down and the lid clipped off, it all just flows out.”

“Community to me means togetherness and extended family.

The community has taught me so much and I’ve learnt so much from being behind the barber chair. It’s now my responsibility to take that information and give it back to the community in a whole way. Like the mentoring schemes I run. This is how the influence from the community is reflected in what I have done and will go on to do for the community.”

“Mentivity is my life’s work, the inspiration behind it comes primarily from my mum who holds education and family in high esteem and my first two mentors: Mr Devon Hanson, who was my head of year at Kingsdale School and Abdullah Ben Kmayal who was my football coach and mentor from the age of 14. Both of these men really guide me through my passion for football and working with young people.”

“Mentoring is important because it is an investment in young people” We give young people time and that time equates to love for them because they don’t routinely have that in the home or within wider society. We are there to guide them into situations where they experience success, which is really important because success becomes addictive and that becomes a real driver for change.

Justin Finlayson of United Borders is doing fantastic work with his mobile studio. He helps deter young people from criminality and bridges the gap and builds relationships between rival gangs through music: their joint passion.

P4YE Project for Youth Empowerment in Croydon is led by a group of phenomenal men that are supporting young people through mentoring and helping to broaden their horizons.

“I found myself in a space where my voice just wasn’t being represented. You never really saw racial justice intersected with climate justice. The voices I wanted to uplift were constantly being pushed down. My mates and I all had some form of connection to climate change and wanted to specify the issues and have people really listen.”

In 2020, we were new, launching in the pandemic. The road signs were our first campaign. One has a silhouette of a mum and child both with afros amongst grey clouds to signify smoke and air pollution. The road signs all had messages about the impact of the disproportionality of air pollution and how it most affects marginalised black and brown communities.

The amount of work activist Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah does for Lewisham communities is absolutely astonishing.

Illegal levels of air pollution led to her daughter Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s death and Rosamumd has been working for years to ensure that the conditions that led to her daughter’s death are acknowledged on a national scale. Ella was the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as the cause of death on their death certificate.

“I spent 8 years in prison and used to play semi-pro football myself. When I was inside I saw many talented young players and when I spoke to them, I found out that they didn’t know there were leagues for semi-professional football. When I was out in 2015 I thought I would create my own team in Hackney and that’s how Hackney FC came to be.“

“I’d like to see things that will bring communities together. More collaborative initiatives, more events that bring people together where they get to know each other. Someone posed important questions the other day. ‘Do we even know each other any more as our parents used to know each other ? Do we have cultural events where we can bring our children and let them meet?’

There are so many people doing good work in communities. There’s Anthony King from Croydon and Sayce Holmes of Mentivity. I don’t want to say too many in case I forget any. Everyone that is doing great things in the community, we see you and appreciate all that you do.

“As a queer person the main thing that we could really engage in was night life and night life is great. I absolutely love it but it’s not the only outlet for queer and black people, there are so many people in our community that do not necessarily engage in night life. The OKHA book club was an alternative to partying and things that are not entirely sober spaces.”

“I really do believe in certain communities having spaces that are just for them”

It is very enriching and empowering to read a story, be able to see yourself in it as you are or as you could be and be with people that have similar experiences to you. Whether it’s to meet someone, get a better understanding of yourself as someone who is still understanding their sexuality, or be in a place to feel safe to explore without the judgment that you do get in other spaces.

Liv Little has a book coming out very soon called Rose Water. She created Gal-Dem - a space that allows amazing people of colour and black journalists to share great stories within the media space, which is overwhelmingly elitist and marginalised. Liv is an incredible fiction writer that is about to create an amazing story about growing up in London, being black, being queer and wanting to be a writer.

“We initially grew organically from a WhatsApp group for guys with a community focus in 2015. I mentioned it to my sister Angeli and she was like ‘why can’t women be in this group’ I took that back to the group and we opened it up. The conversations became more holistic and we started asking questions like what we can do for our community and started implementing the suggestions.” Otis, TAP Business Development Director

“Community to me is a reciprocal, symbiotic relationship.” Meatta, TAP, Education Director

“Ubuntu, I am because we are.” Otis

“Community is that extended circle of people that you trust, that you know you can turn to and tap in to if you need help.” -Alexandra, TAP Health Lead

“To elevate the community is to honour the community through service.” Angeli, TAP Community & Finance Director

“Collaboration is crucial. As long as our end goal and vision are the same. Making a way because the collective goal is more important than the self.” Meatta

“From a health aspect I think that a lot more people including men are starting to take mental health seriously and it’s not so taboo to say ‘I went to therapy’ or ‘I am seeking therapy’.” Alexandra

My role models from childhood influenced my journey to becoming a coach. Mr Brown, my P.E teacher, was a successful basketball player, teacher and coach and he made me feel like I could do the same.

I’ve worked with many players over the years who have gone on to be successful in various ways. Some who had been going down the wrong path have now graduated and got good jobs. Others have gone on to play for England, and others have gone on to be doctors, lawyers and teachers and have thanked me for building up their discipline and mental strength.

I’ve worked with some good people around the city. There are ex-professional players who are now teachers helping the youth through education. There’s Wayne Robinson who was England’s Captain as a junior and is now showing young people how they can turn their life around. Steven Hansell is one of the best coaches I’ve ever worked with at the club and Danny Williams is now creating pathways for young people to play basketball.

Black Studies are new in UK universities but not new to the UK or in the community. The creation of the Black Studies syllabus was influenced by Kehinde’s own studies and research into black psychology and liberation psychology. "At PHD level when doing my research, I wanted to make sure to base my research on communities, and to make sure my findings were translated into University coursework that would ultimately benefit the community."

“Harambee is an old organisation that my dad started running in 1972, with my mum and other activists in Birmingham that dealt with independence. It was a nursery school, bookshop, hostel and it offered legal and immigration advice. The kind of things the state wasn’t providing. When I did my PhD, I came across Malcom X’s organisation of Afro-American Unity, which was all about the need to have an organisation that can bring people together and teach them about economics, education etc. This informed the creation of the Organisation of Black Unity which merged with the Harambee initiative”.

“You see students come in with lots of ideas they can’t really express and by the end [of the course], you can see they are expressing ideas and from their speaking form, you can see that they’ve really got it. They are able to go out and organise.

We have seven black members of staff in our department and that is more members of black staff than most universities have. It’;s really important because that black environment is a space where you can be yourself outside some of the racial expectations of school”

This all stems from my love of food. At the time I opened my restaurant in Birmingham we were missing somewhere where the community could sit down, eat good Caribbean food, have a birthday party, go on a date. There was nothing quite like that and it was my dream to create that space and that vision led to me opening Mellows Bar and Restaurant.

We are foodies, food is very important to the black community. Carribean food is one of the cuisines you can eat, enjoy and be full. It’s tasty, it’s homely, it brings back memories from the Caribbean where we’ve grown up from. Food allows us to keep our history, it brings us together and also draws in other communities to experience our unique culture.

There are many good leaders in Birmingham, not just in cooking. There’s music management like Despa Robinson of BE83, Adians Dining, Chef Kano, The Legacy Centre and so many more who are bringing the community together.