The broadcasters, the student network, the petition platform and the initiator.

Make Diversity Count

#makediversitycount is a movement to make all UK organisations have a discrimination policy.

Collaborators:

  • Change.org – A petition website. They host the project’s petition, give advice on how to carry out the campaign and re-shares campaign content on their social media channels.
  • Black Impact – Black Impact is a national African and Caribbean student network. They promote the campaign and hosted interactive video discussions about the campaign.
  • The Tab – National online student newspaper. I collaborated with an editor, Greg Barradale, to produce two articles about the project.
  • BBC – Broadcasting platform. I collaborated with them (Kofi Smiles and Folarin Sagaya) to produce content for the project on TV, radio and online.
  • HuffPost & The Guardian – Online newspapers. They featured the story behind the project

 

How did the collaboration come about?

The collaboration came about through Osaro Otobo reaching out to all of the collaborators. She had the idea and the collaborators had the infrastructure to help. The media collaborators had the funding to produce the content (articles, radio show & TV segment). The momentum of the #blacklivesmatter movement helped the project as there was space and interest to talk about racism

 

What were the most important factors that contributed to the success of this project?

Response to need
The ‘big’ idea
Combination of skill sets
Combination of participants
Volunteer support
Delivery of project
Social impact

 

Project funding

Through pre-existing resources that collaborators already had.

 

Will the project continue beyond COVID-19 lockdown?

Yes. There is the intention to make it a legal requirement for all UK registered organisations (public sector companies, private companies, educational institutions, charities etc.) to have a policy visibly in place detailing what exactly the procedure for dealing with reports of discrimination and racism is. In order for laws and policies to change that takes time.