When I speak to Lavinya, it’s 3pm, and she jokingly mentions how unstructured and busy her day had been. The latter is no surprise. At just 23-years-old, Lavinya Stennett is embarking on an important mission to transform the Black British curriculum. The Black Curriculum are a social enterprise that run virtual and in-person programmes for young people, schools, and corporations promoting the importance of Black history. So far, they have partnered with familiar names, such as M&S and Macmillan. But Lavinya explains that the work is nowhere near done.
In the past year, The Black Curriculum has had a wave of recognition on a level like never before. Lavinya reflects on this period, “it was just after June when we had an outpouring of support and raised awareness.” But with that reception came mixed emotions. In June 2020, the Black community was left distraught, collectively mourning the loss of George Floyd, as well as another long timeline of Black deaths at the hands of police. The world saw companies, brands and celebrities go into a frenzy as they frantically came together to offer solidarity. Meaningless black boxes swarmed our Instagram and Twitter feeds, and we were inundated with a rush of templated statements.
Lavinya speaks with pride at how much The Black Curriculum has achieved and what they have been able to do, especially during that time. But with a slight sadness, and like many of us in the Black community, not yet knowing how many of the changes we’re seeing are genuine and non-performative.
“Retrospectively, I can see that it was a period of many people just doing things for the sake of it,” she tells me. “I can say there are a lot of people who have changed. Not changed their minds, but at least adapted to understand what we do and why we do it. But in the long term, how many people learn from that moment?”
She tells me that, on the plus side, the pandemic has allowed for better connections with schools: “For us, it's been a good opportunity to really get into people's homes – and meet them where they are rather than in an institution, and I think that has enabled us to actually connect to teachers on a deeper level.”
“Being able to teach people at home via virtual learning definitely gives us that space for more authentic interaction.”
Lavinya was aware of the lack of diversity in the UK curriculum from a very early age and, describes it as being very white. “I knew it was a problem,” she says. “But the language I have now, I didn't have then. I didn't feel part of that classroom environment and it wasn't engaging at all.” She tells me a bit about her secondary school experiences, navigating through the exciting coming-of-age years, but not enjoying her history classes. One of Lavinya’s early defining moments however, was a specific class she had in primary school. “There was one class on [Black] pioneers,” she explains, emphasizing the word “one” as if to draw attention to the fact this wasn’t good enough. “After that class, I went home and read all these books about Black events. And it was such a memorable thing because it was positive. It was another side of the story.”
And I definitely resonated with Lavinya’s experience. For many of us, stories of Black suffering, war, and adversity, around the topic of slavery are very familiar. Black History Month was previously dominated by heart-wrenching stories of our trials and tribulations. It’s refreshing to see the joyful parts of our histories celebrated and amplified.
And The Black Curriculum goes much further. Through Lavinya’s work, she ensures that students have an inherent sense of identity and belonging. “Because we stand by the perspective that if you don't know your roots, how are you going to navigate your identity today?” she explains. “We counter that focus on history that is about oppression and try to include narratives that are much broader. And also extending that focus to the British colonies in Africa and the Caribbean.”
We stumble onto talking about Notting Hill Carnival, and the collective sense of sadness felt by the Black community after it was cancelled for the first time, due to the pandemic. In response to this, the Black Curriculum decided to create a zine, educating people on the history of Notting Hill Carnival: “Many people know it's a great festival to go to, but they don't know why Claudia Jones decided to set it up. We wanted to amplify a lot of the existing work that goes into it, but then also give people the chance to come together and reminisce.”
Lavinya sounds even more energized when she tells me about how her journey into building The Black Curriculum began, and where the idea stemmed from. Studying African and Development Studies at SOAS (the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East), she got the bug for wanting to tell Black stories. She decided to “set up something that was nationwide to give young people a sense of identity and belonging.” Being in New Zealand during the final year of her degree reaffirmed to her just how little the UK Curriculum covers as far as Black histories. She elaborates: “In learning Maori culture, it dawned upon me that there was a lack of education more widely around the impacts of colonialism. But more specifically, a lack of narratives that showcase the reclamation of our culture and history.”
Growing up, Lavinya was always taught to be proud of her Jamaican heritage, and it was also her upbringing that influenced her journey into founding The Black Curriculum. “I come from a family where we’ve always been proud of our heritage,” she explains. “I was taught to be proud of my hair, I'd never had my hair permed or texturized. The message was always to be really confident in your skin and yourself. And I think that empowerment was translated through the kind of cultural schooling I had. Things like racism and standing up for yourself, I had those conversations a lot with my parents.”
Since the Black Curriculum was founded, it has gone from strength to strength. Patrons of the organisation now include David Olusoga, Virgil Abloh, and Jade Bentil, and partners include Macmillian and even the Mayor Of London. “[the Mayor Of London] had an existing curriculum, so for a while we’d thought it would be a good idea to help them with the actual teaching, and supporting the young people that access the programmes to learn about Black history,” she says. Lavinya was even asked to contribute to David Olusoga’s new book Black and British in the form of an afterword. A donation of 50p also goes straight to The Black Curriculum with every copy sold. She tells me excitedly that David later became a patron of the organisation, after they realised how aligned their aims were.
We speak for a while about the power of social media and its ability to build connections. “People literally just find the page, and say “this is really cool”. So our recognition is a mixture of that and support from other people I know,” she says. “When you partner with one person, other people start to look, and say “so how can we work with you?” Hopefully, it just continues to go from strength to strength.”
But social media isn’t always the most inviting, safe environment, and issues surrounding race on social media are not always received well. And to the people who argue that there’s no need to diversify the curriculum? Lavinya says: “Our curriculum, as it stands, is not equipped to give knowledge. Because the knowledge we are getting is partial. So in translating that knowledge into everyday life, and how we operate as humans in society, we are only given a half-truth. That half-truth doesn't really allow us to understand the world and Britain as it is today. But the fact that it's not diverse is not the point that we should stop at, it's about the impact of it not being diversified. What that produces is inequalities in society, it has more serious impacts beyond just not being multicultural.”
Following the success of The Black Curriculum’s work so far, Lavinya has even bigger plans for the next few years. As an arts-based organisation, they are about to partner with a record label. The ultimate goal is to empower all students to have a sense of identity, on a racial, and cultural level.
“Over the next couple of months, we’re expanding into four different cities, including Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester. We're also going to continue launching our springboard programme, which is a music-based programme. This year, we're trying to reach 25,000 people. And in a few years, we'll be able to scale out of the UK and go into the EU, and hopefully, Africa, The Caribbean or the US,” she tells me.
“Because this is a global thing. It's not just the UK that has a problem with its curriculum. It's every country that was colonised.”
You can find out more about The Black Curriculum here.