Elliot Moss
Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping the worlds of Jazz, Soul and Blues. My change making guest today is Lavinya Stennett, Founder and CEO of The Black Curriculum, a social enterprise supporting the teaching of black history all year round and empowering students with a greater sense of identity and belonging. Aware from an early age of the lack of diversity in the UK curriculum, it was on a scholarship at New Zealand’s Waikato University that Lavinya was inspired by their commitment to teaching indigenous culture and its history. As she says, “It dawned on me there was a lack of education around the impacts of colonialism but more specifically, a lack of narratives that showcase the reclamation of our culture and history.” Lavinya founded The Black Curriculum in 2019 to improve British education. They deliver arts focussed programmes and teacher training to empower all young people in the UK to recognise that this country has always been diverse. It’s really great to have you here, thank you for coming in. Tell me about this thing you’ve set up because we’re now in 2021 and I think when people think about the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ and when they think about the changes that have happened, at least since the pandemic hit, the acceleration of people’s consciousness around rights for all sorts of things, whether it’s women’s rights, whether it’s people of different cultures, rights, all sorts of things, the environment, I feel like we’re in a very interesting moment. Why did you decide, before all of that, to do something about what you were feeling?
Lavinya Stennett
Yeah, so, The Black Curriculum, it’s just a social enterprise at its heart, that is really dedicated to making sure that all students across the UK are empowered with a sense of identity and belonging so, I come from the perspective that currently education is a fundamental human right and every young person deserves an accessible education that is accurate, reflective of them and their experiences and actually shapes them for the future. The Black Curriculum was really just generated from seeing a lot of issues with the education system from my own experiences but also people around me not getting black history in a way that was empowering or taught all year round as well so, I think it was, yeah, born from frustration but also being able to see the connections between how British colonialism has really kind of spanned across the whole world and there’s such a lack of awareness about the impact that it’s had and also how that translates to what our current reality is, not only within education but also society. So, that really kind of crystalised when I was in New Zealand and gave me the inspiration to make sure that the black curriculum was something that is for everybody, all year.
Elliot Moss
But do you think, I mean, many people would have followed the same path as you, they would have chosen to study a subject that mattered to them and then they go off and do something else. What do you think it is about you that said you know what, this is so important to me that I’m going to do something about it for people beyond me? Because you could have, and many people do this, would have said well I’ve been educated, I know it and now I’m going to go and work in a bank.
Lavinya Stennett
Right.
Elliot Moss
Why didn’t you do that?
Lavinya Stennett
Because it’s not about me, I’m part of an ecosystem. Whilst I feel like I have been, you know, affected by a lot of the issues within education and being disenfranchised by that, I see and I understand what it’s like to be on the outside and not really have, you know, the right support systems and also just the trust that I think teachers and people who are gatekeepers of young people need to give to young people so I think for me it’s more than just, yeah, I guess a journey of self-development but more about what can we do for other people and I’m just very disciplined as well, like I think once I realised that it was something that I am passionate about, I will just follow it.
Elliot Moss
You were talking earlier about the fact that it isn’t just about you. Most people in life, it is just about them. Where do you think in your upbringing you had the sense of the world beyond you is a really important thing and that, you know, you ought to give? Was that part of the way you were parented or did that come completely from your own experience of life?
Lavinya Stennett
That’s a really good question. I think there’s some events in life that make you a lot of more, and depending on the context that you are in, make you a lot more kind of individualistic but my community has always been very collective and I’m from a Jamaican background which I think has really influenced the way that I see the world. Church was a huge part of my upbringing, being able to just share elements of my culture and who I am, yeah, it’s just a part of who we are as a people. However, I do think that that kind of did change me after education when I was kicked out in Year 8. I think I saw the world from a very like ‘me lens’ and I think that really kind of put me on the other side to see how anger and also frustration actually shapes your identity but I found a community through that anger when I was in college and I think having that kind of outlet but also practice and then following that through university really helped me to see and it crystalised as well what we could do to shape that kind of experience that I had outside of college into something meaningful and, you know, that was done through a lot of society work and activism in University and I couldn’t have done it myself, it was everybody’s kind of collective effort.
Elliot Moss
Back to the Year 8 moment and, you know I read about you and it said you were excluded, I think once or was it more than that?
Lavinya Stennett
Twice.
Elliot Moss
Twice. Thirteen year old Lavinya, yeah, that transition from thirteen year old you to University. What was the personal journey like to go from it’s all about me to this young person sitting in front of me now who’s doing incredible things, who’s making a real difference to, as you described it, the ecosystem as it were because you are part of it? What were the two or three key things that happened between that Lavinya and this one now?
Lavinya Stennett
I’d say a change in the friends that I was around, firstly. I think, well there’s the saying like birds of a feather flock together and if you’re around a community that isn’t uplifting you and empowering you, you’re not really going to have much of an insight or just understanding as to what is possible so I think, you know, the first thing is just having a good community. Mentoring as well, I had a very good mentor and it wasn’t like ‘oh I can help you with, you know, your UCAS and everything’, it was more about ‘what do you want from life and how can I support you’. Just to even wake up in the morning and her name was Natasha and she’s still in my life today and I think that really helped me and I think going forward that has been something that I’ve made sure continues as well. Also I’d say just following my passions, I think I didn’t really have that opportunity to do so in school so being able to go to college and have that just for me was just the thing that just turned it the other way.
Elliot Moss
And then as we move towards the moment when you decide to set this thing up, just tell me a little bit about that, the months leading up the creation of your baby?
Lavinya Stennett
Oh my gosh, yeah. I was thinking about this the other day. It was sacrifice really because I was in my second year of University and it wasn’t a opportunity that you know SOAS just gave, it was, I had to apply for it and it was a very weird time because it fell in our summer and if you know like American and New Zealand semesters, they are very different to our kind of terms so, the scholarship was for June to September which is the middle of our summer so, after I finished my second year I went straight back and it was literally very intense, I just felt that there was just a lot on my mind, not only because I was in University listening to so much talks around reparation, listening to, you know, the impacts of colonialism but then I also had this very meaningful opportunity to just observe and so, it was very peaceful but intense, if that makes sense and I think when I was out there, it really helped me to just digest everything that I had learnt on a practical level from SOAS.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me to find out much more from my Business Shaper, Lavinya Stennett. She is the CEO and founder of The Black Curriculum, she will be back in a couple of minutes. Right now though, we’re going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions. They can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Mishcon de Reya’s Martha Averley and Matt Robinson talk about Equity, Diversity and Inclusion with regards to recruitment and how employers can recruit in a fair but diverse way.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and indeed you can hear this very programme again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your podcast platform of choice. Or if you have a smart speaker you can ask it to play Jazz Shapers and there you will find a taster of our recent shows. But back to today’s guest, the main event, it’s Lavinya Stennett. She’s Founder and CEO of The Black Curriculum, social enterprise supporting the teaching of black history all year round and empowering students with a greater sense of identity and belonging. What I noticed when I did my research into you and into the organisation is that, I’ve mentioned that you are young and age is irrelevant but it’s relevant to this particular point, your social media presence is pretty significant, in a couple of years you have chosen I imagine digital channels to raise awareness and there are thousands of people in different places. Do you also find when you meet people and engage different organisations and Marks & Spencer are involved and I think Universal Music is involved, great people that there is a generational issue around understanding what it is you are trying to do or is it nothing to do with age and simply to do with a person’s mindset?
Lavinya Stennett
Good question. I would say that the intersections of our identities mean that we process things very differently. In the age of social media, there is definitely much more awareness and I guess a need to do something to change the kind of society that we are living in and I find that, you know, through the research, particularly in the early days of The Black Curriculum when we were just trying to understand the issue, it was not only young people but also older people who were saying and their experiences were just parallel, ‘we haven’t learnt black history and this is wrong because, you know, I don’t know myself, I don’t really know the history of our country’ and there’s no way to kind of challenge that so there was an alignment, you know, when it came to different age groups, however, we do see though that in terms of like action oriented things, it has to come from somebody and this is just persons who just have a willingness to just be a little bit uncomfortable perhaps or just have an edge for learning. I think we can get to a certain place in life where I think we close down to new ideas or ideas are more kind of concretised than we I guess have a lot more resistance towards seeing things in a different way or challenging the assumptions that we have so…
Elliot Moss
It’s a polite way of saying when you are older, you stop being as open.
Lavinya Stennett
…not necessarily.
Elliot Moss
But mainly, it can be.
Lavinya Stennett
Sometimes, sometimes. I think there is like, you know my mum’s a great example, she was the one in the end that was teaching me things about black history that she picked up after I was doing me Degree and I was like, with that kind of willingness and passion is amazing and it doesn’t, you know, necessarily align with her age or what I would expect typically of someone who is a lot older than me.
Elliot Moss
The hashtag TBH365, Teaching Black History or To Be Honest, as well, is what I wrote, TBH which I quite like. I recall over the years very well meaning Black History month and I guess your point is, excuse me, this never ends and if you don’t have it on, if the tap is not always on, you’re not going to have as good a chance to help people understand their own history, if their history is a Windrush community history which I believe yours is on one side or if indeed it’s someone that, you know, who’s not black who doesn’t understand black history and who says ‘no, no, that’s what…’, well I assume it’s just that and it isn’t. Tell me about the team that you assembled in the early days to make sure that you could bring this all to life because that’s a big, it’s a big thing to do to try and change, isn’t it? To make… to turn the tap on the whole time. Explain to me a little bit about how you found the right people and you knew what to do?
Lavinya Stennett
Sure. So, I knew firstly that once we got the grant to launch The Black Curriculum that we needed people who could actually have the skillset to assemble this curriculum to put together. So, for me it was just who do I know, who’s in my network that I can just ask to help and I have a friend, Shereen, who has a group for black women where I met Lisa Kennedy and Bethany Thompson and they in the initial first months helped to kind of like building, you know, the right team that we needed for the future so we hired freelancers after that and then, you know, we were a team of twelve, we put together the syllabus made up of people from SOAS, mainly people that I was studying with or people who went to SOAS before and we just worked together to build this curriculum so it was literally just people who had expertise in just the knowledge of what kind of black history needed to be on the curriculum and I would say also just myself, being able to just orchestrate how it looks and, yeah, assembly.
Elliot Moss
So the substance is great and then you go now I’ve got to amplify this and then you go now I’ve got to amplify this and actually get the high level of awareness and I’ve read about M&S being involved and I’ve read about actually Lush being involved and the Mayor of London and then Universal Music, which I mentioned. How did you, was it you personally that went in and said right, this is what we’re doing and this is why you should be involved? Is it that simple?
Lavinya Stennett
No.
Elliot Moss
I didn’t think it would be.
Lavinya Stennett
Not at all. In the early days there was just an underlying fire between a very small group of freelancers and myself as to making sure that this would work and I think, you know, before we had all the followers, before we had all these big corporates, you know, behind our work, there was literally three of us, myself, Ilhan and Saffa, emailing schools, cold calling loads and loads of schools just saying this is the product you need, you need to have this in your schools, you know you’re missing out, October’s you know coming up fast. Three schools got back to us saying yeah, right, like we get you, come in, roll it, and I think once we had that and had the confirmation of what we already really knew, it really kind of just helped to bring us onto a path where nobody could really argue that this wasn’t something that was needed and I think once we got into the school, it just kind of just helped to just amplify the work that we’re doing. Getting the partners and working with them as well has been something that has helped me to just open my mind as to how to work and engage with different parts of society because, you know, working within education system, that’s the main kind of core concept of what we’re trying to do. It’s, you know, building in that sense of identity and belonging but amplifying that work, you have to learn how to negotiate, you have to learn how to also have like shared interests and ways that they’re going to benefit from that as well and I think for me it’s like well if this is for young people and the society that they’re in, how can for example Lush play a really good role in making that happen and you know we have good people on the team who have also been fundamental to making these partnerships happen and I think the key of it is just how can we support each other to make sure that this shared goal becomes a reality but most of the partnerships came in after June 2020, which is straight after Black Lives Matter.
Elliot Moss
I also, sounds like I’ve done a lot of research today but there was just so much to cover for so few years on the planet, winner you are of the anti-racist campaign at Marie Claire Future Shapers Award 2020, you are in The Sunday Times 50 Women of the Year 2020, Trailblazer of the Year at the Hello Magazine Star Women Awards 2020, feature in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex List of Next Gen Trailblazers 2020 recognising individuals who challenge prejudice and contribute to British society. I am sure when you started this you set out to do none of those things, as in you wouldn’t, you don’t, you know, just meeting you in the last few minutes, it’s like yeah whatever, that’s really nice and that probably helps you do what you want to do but it’s not for Lavinya, as such, I imagine. But my question is actually, you mention the team and you talk, it’s very interesting when I ask that question because people sometimes just talk about the team and other people name names, you name names. What would they say about you do you think? What do they say to you? How open is that culture within the organisation?
Lavinya Stennett
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
In terms of the style of your leadership because you, great, lovely big ticks on accolades. What’s the real deal?
Lavinya Stennett
Right, what’s the real deal? I think people would say that I’m very like, I’m open. If I’m doing something wrong, I want to know from you and I make sure that there’s the forums and I have the right kind of communication style to get that feedback so I’d say people would say working in my team that, you know, I want things to be transparent and I like problems, I like to have problems to sort out so, I lead with compassion, I hope I’m not like oh, yeah, yeah, tick, tick, tick but I’d say one of my points that I want to get stronger on and I think the team will notice this as well, is communication. Oh lord, I think a lot of things but sometimes I just don’t… it’s not that I don’t think to say it, it’s just, I just don’t say it, so I think they will probably say she just needs to work a little bit more on communicating more, which I am doing so, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Well, that’s what you’re going to be working and there we’ve just done your appraisal, you’ve done it for yourself, that’s brilliant. Stay with me for a bit more from Lavinya Stennett, she’s my Business Shaper today talking about what comes next for her personal development and her leadership style. She’s looking pensive now, thinking what else do I need to work on? I’m sure you are doing a brilliant job. My final chat is coming up with her and we’ve got a classic from Billie Holiday, that’s in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
I’ve been talking to Lavinya Stennett, she’s been my Business Shaper today and we’ve been talking about The Black Curriculum. So here we are in 2021 and as you said, a lot of the sponsors, the corporate support that you pushed for, that you haggled for, came on board after the Black Lives Matter and probably the death of George Floyd at that time, really raised everybody’s consciousness to beyond being a thing that people might talk about to a thing that pretty much everybody was talking about and I imagine around the world. First question related to that, emotionally, how have you managed yourself because you’re going to react as a human being, you’re going to react as someone from the Jamaican community, you’re going to react to someone who’s set up an educational organisation but you’ve also got to react as someone who’s a leader of something so, just on that front, how have you managed the, I imagine, because I’ve been on the rollercoaster and it’s, I’m not involved in any of these things directly at all. How have you managed that and then I’ll ask you the follow up question?
Lavinya Stennett
Yeah, there’s layers and I think before anything, The Black Curriculum has just been top of the agenda. Sometimes I do neglect myself from who I am as a person to make sure this thing happens and, you know, in hindsight if I could have done things differently, I would have slowed down a lot last year because I just wanted us to be in a good position and I think by December I realised that I was emotionally very burnt out by a lot of the demand and attention that had come towards us so, whilst a very, you know, super moment for The Black Curriculum and also arguably my career as well, it’s also how can I sustain this as a person, right? So, I think in hindsight I would have just taken a little bit more time but now I’m at a place where I do kind of lead with myself first but also making sure that The Black Curriculum’s goals and health is there too because as a mid-sized, nearly three year old organisation, there’s so much, it’s almost kind of weighing up the balance of how do we get this to a point that it’s sustainable but also make sure that we’re looking forward to the future and I think just offsetting some of that sometimes is very challenging but we have the right support, I have a very good advisory board, very good team and mentors as well, very good mentors and coaches who have helped support me so, yeah.
Elliot Moss
And you’ve touched on the future. I guess my next question is, how hopeful are you that this really is a change point? A moment of change and that that change is real and deep and of substance rather than everyone goes, okay good, we’ve ticked the box of doing education around black history and this and that, and other people are saying yes and we’ve looked at EDI strategy and we’ve now ticked that box too. Are you hopeful that it will be real and meaningful change?
Lavinya Stennett
A good question. I think there is definitely hope. I know that The Black Curriculum’s goals will be realised and I think that can only continue and happen and be sustained through people who have the right intentions which ultimately is about young people, it’s not, you know, to tick boxes or to you know, give the idea or the semblance that things are happening but it’s more about producing a society where young people actively are engaged with their learning and I think at the heart of that, if that isn’t in your mind then it will become just a tick box exercise. So I am hopeful but I think it has to be, you have to reflect a lot. I think we’re always moving, always moving and always onto the next thing and I think without that time to really process what we’re doing and why, we can fulltrap to making this just a thing but I’m hopeful, I think we the right context and the right team and good supporters out there who will continue lifelong to continue to support the mission so I’m absolutely hopeful we’ll bring a tangible change.
Elliot Moss
I can see in your eyes as well that you know that’s the question, isn’t it, that’s the serious question and that isn’t an easy one and I’m hopeful too but we’ve got to keep our eyes open. It’s been brilliant talking to you. Thank you, thanks for your time. Just before I let you disappear, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Lavinya Stennett
Well initially I was going to say Herbie Hancock, Watermelon Man but I love the song but I feel like given what we’ve just been speaking about, The Black Curriculum, Marcus Miller’s We Were There is a lot more apt because I think it represents the African diaspora and collective memory and that’s what we’re about, it’s about bringing history into the now and that song is just perfect.
Elliot Moss
That was Marcus Miller with We Were There, the song choice of my brilliant Business Shaper today, Lavinya Stennett. She talked about sacrifice and why she stopped thinking about herself and why she had to focus on the thing in front of her which meant a lot of personal sacrifice. She talked about being part of the ecosystem, about thinking beyond herself and into the wider world. “I like problems,” she said and I think it’s critical that Founders of businesses like problems and finally, incredible really for such a young person, she talked about the importance of reflecting a lot and that reflection is where the answers often lie for the biggest problems that we all face. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You will find hundreds of more guests available to listen to in our archive, just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.