Students took part in an informative Question and Answer session as part of the Culture Fest activities.

We were delighted to be joined by Hannah (a Youth Worker and member of the Plymouth and Devon Racial Equality Council), Tanya (Researcher at the Box (Museum, Gallery and Archive in Plymouth)) and Kadus (Youth Worker at Plymouth Argyle Community Trust) who took questions from students on a variety of topics linked to Inclusivity, Equality and Diversity and overcoming barriers to Inclusivity.

In a response to a question by the students, the guests spoke about some of the barriers to getting a job and some of the prejudices they faced.

They recalled that receiving a ‘no’ can discourage them from wanting to keep going, but that they had to remind themselves that ‘with every ‘no’ there is going to be a ‘Yes’’.

In terms of dealing with situations, students were encouraged to call out instances of discriminatory conversations and to ‘use, your voice, use your voice, use your voice and things will change slowly’.

Our guests also drew on the influence of the internet and encouraged the audience to ‘step outside’ and consider and be careful as to where they get their information from.

Kadus also thanked Miss Ball and Miss Hanton who organised the sessions that make up CultureFest and complimented them as ‘amazing allies’.

We would like to thank our participants for contributing to the Question and Answer panel and we hope to organise more of these sessions soon.