 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Chris Wright on the project manager for ITM Hull. A very warm welcome to you all as you gathered my name is not on there. So I am not one of the keynote speakers, just little business before we begin. Everybody has come with bags or got their bags at their hotels already. A green rectangular canvas bag has been left just at the entrance by the box office there. Whoever that belongs to, they need to come and claim that bag please before we can continue. I don't want to name and shade anyone, so I stand up and walk out. Acser, yn y cyfnod, rwy'n ceisio si'n pob i, mewn cyfr είναιxio y cyfr sefydlu. A hyn yn cyfrwys iawn, mae'n cyfrindwch yn bwysig, mae'n ddweud bod yn cael ei wneud â'r cyfrwys. Mae'n eich bach oall deilio. Ac felly mae'n oedd amser o'n oed, byddwn i'n cwm ddim yn sgored am gonfer. wedi'i ddweud yn ddau. Nw'n ddweud ei wneud am y cyfrwys. Friendsau i Christon yn gyfer hynny, welcome. I'm pleased to say to Hull and to IETM Hull 2019 to everybody. My name is Katy Fuller and I'm the creative director and chief executive of Absolutely Cultured, we are the local organising partner here in Hull. We're really thrilled to be hosting this IETM plenary meeting in a city which has seen in recent years a real upsurge in cultural penedigol. Mae gennych gan gweithio y gweithio yn y gweithio, a'r cyflawnol yn y gweithio ar y ddweud i gael ar y ffostau ac ymddiadol. Mae gennych â'r cyflawni'n gweithio a'r ffortunitau ac mae gennych â'r cynnig o'r pethau newydd. Felly, yr ysgolwch yn cyfrifolol ar gyfer ystyried ar y cyflawni, yn 2017, yng Nghymru yn Ysgrifennu Cymru, ac mae'n cyflawni'r cyd-wrthwynt o ddweud o'r 2,500 projekts sy'n gyfnod i'n 365 oedd. Mae'n ffordd i'r hyn o'r wych, sy'n sefydlu famwyr yn y rôl y maen iawn, i'r cyffredin a ph overseas iawn y methu, sy'n digwydd i'r hanfath yr olwylo cyllid a'r cyfrwyr cymaint. Mae ymdeithas diwethaf yn y rhai amddangos i gwestiynau cymryd ymddangos amddangos i gwestiynau i'r chyfrwylo ac yr amddangos i gymwylo i gynnydd i'r bydd aroed o'r cyflwyme am y gweld eich ddi priests y bydd. I'd like to give thanks and credit to Hull-based E-52 and Leeds-based Walking-Talking project for their initiative and foresight in spearheading the original idea of bringing IETM to Hull as part of the legacy of City of Culture and it's a legacy for Hull for the north, the wider region and the whole of the UK. It's a long time since IETM has been to the UK and we're delighted that it's back here in Hull. I need to do a whole heap of thank yous now so please bear with me but it's really important that we recognise the effort and energy that's gone into making this happen. So a big thank you from us to the team at IETM who have been incredibly supportive and have guided us through this process beautifully. To the British Council and the Arts Council England who have championed IETM Hull as well as providing funding and support to enable this event to happen. To Hull City Council who got behind this project from the very early days and have again provided support and resources and also to Visit Britain. A thank you to Hull Truck for providing us with this amazing space to use as a hub and for also managing the box office for all of the ticketing for the artistic programme which is a no mean feat although of course normal business for Hull Truck. I want to give a huge thanks to our steering group. This has been one of the best examples that I've ever experienced in my working life of working with a steering group. They've supported us, they've guided us, they've advised, they've challenged us and they've each individually put an enormous amount of leg work in as well to making it happen, been really hands on. So a big thank you to Jessica Farmer and Hannah Bentley from Arts Council England, to Andrew Jones and to Cathy McCardle from the British Council, to Joe Verrent from Unlimited and to John Wilkinson and Amanda Hookstable. And another huge thank you to my team at Absolutely Cultured who've worked really tirelessly to turn this around in I think maybe a record breaking amount of time for delivering an IETM plenary. It's been a very short turnaround. A particular thanks to Chris who you've met, Lindsay Stockley, Sammy Hindmarsh, Lily Mellor, Becca Clark, Ben Pugh, Dan Watts, Becca Aspin, Laura Andrew and the many many other people who work behind the scenes, processing invoices and all of those are the less shiny sexy things. I've got a few practical things to tell you about. You've all got your guides, hopefully, which should have all the information you need in, but the other thing to say is that the teams are around. But also our iconic blue-coated volunteers who you will have met outside. They'll be throughout the city at the different venues that we're using. Whole IETM is spread right across the city. It's a really exciting way to get to know the city and to explore it, but those volunteers will be there to help you, ask them anything. They know all of the answers. I can guarantee it. I'd also like to draw your attention to the courtesy code that's in the guide. This has been developed by the local team and it's designed in the spirit of inclusion to enable the creation of a safe space in which all voices can be heard and an environment in which opposing views can exist without judgement and prejudice. So please have a look at that and familiarise yourself with it. Also the artistic program. It's cracking. I'm absolutely over the moon with the range, diversity, quality of the shows that we've been able to bring here to whole. We're really, really lucky to have that here and we're really lucky that that's open for our local audience as well as for you delegates. If you haven't got your tickets yet, the box office is just outside. Tickets for other venues aren't available on the door, so do you make sure that you book them up in advance? I think that's the practicalities over with, so it just remains for me to say that I'm really personally hugely excited about the next few days. The theme of inclusion is so rich and vital and we'll be looking at it from so many different angles that I know it's going to massively enrich my own working practices. The conversation, debate, exchange of ideas, sharing of knowledge, inspirational artistic work will enrich all of our thinking hopefully. On top of that, it's an opportunity to remember and celebrate how much more we can do when we talk together and work together. So please make the most of your time here. Please enjoy our beautiful, vibrant, creative city. It's now my great pleasure to hand over to Stephen Brady, the leader of Hull City Council and one of the most genuine champions of culture I have ever had the good fortune to work with. So please give him a warm welcome. Thank you. On behalf of Hull City Council, I'd like to welcome you all from around the globe to our wonderful city. Outside of this theatre or every theatre in the UK and every art gallery or any places of culture, you will find at the moment division on quite a big subject in the UK. Founding our position in Europe, however, inside the theatres and the art galleries and cultural establishments, you'll see a sense of purpose. You'll see unity in people enjoying the programmes and the arts and everything else. If only all the talk and the energy from what's going on in the UK at the moment was transported into doing things and into providing inspiration, then wouldn't it be a great place in this country? We started out when we came in and formed the administration in 2011, the world and this country as well was in turmoil with the financial crisis and Hull City Council first over 50% of its funding cuts. Of course at that time the easy option is to cut the arts and culture and we did exactly the opposite. We actually increased the funding to arts and culture. We put in for UK city culture, they laughed, a lot of the people, they aren't laughing anymore. Well hopefully they've had a few laughs at the comedy festivals and all the rest that's gone on. We came through because we believed in ourselves. The main reason why we got that UK city culture title was because everybody in the city worked together to that aim and convinced the judges that it was the right place to be given that title. Over that period of time since then we've totally rebuilt the city in terms of the cultural offers. The theatres have been refurbished, a new music venue where we had a derelectary of the city, we've totally reconstructed the city centre. We're putting it as a place in this world where everybody's buying online as a city centre where people come to enjoy themselves and take part in culture and leisure. Our volunteers have been absolutely fantastic that the base of every success that we've had and every street in this city has had at least one person from that street become a volunteer and what a great asset they are to the country. 97% of the people of the city took part in cultural events during that 2017 year and they are carrying on doing that. We've got much more to do but I think I've said enough and politicians always go on too long. I do know we've got a centre purpose in what we want to do is little talking and plenty of action so I'd like to introduce Elsa and thank you very much for listening. What an inspiration the city of Hull can be to many cities around the world I must say. Good afternoon everybody. For those that don't know me, I'm Elsa Rikastotir, the new Secretary-General of IHM. I'm going to start with a thank you. First of all, lots of thank yous. Thank you the artistic community of Hull for inviting us to your city. Thank you absolutely cultured team for the very good cooperation in the last months and all the hard work. Thank you the staff of all the venues in Hull which are going to be housing our activities in the coming days. Thank you British Council and Arts Council of England, Visit Britain, City of Hull for the support for this meeting. And last but not least, thank you Creative Europe and the Flemish community for enabling IHM to continue its work. And thank you members for your continuous support in keeping this network of ours vibrant and relevant. Secondly, I want to draw your attention to several brilliant articles on our IHM website which we have commissioned specially for this meeting in partnership with Hull round. And the inspiring mapping of North England written by our very own Tim Wheeler sitting over there for this meeting also on our website. Thirdly, don't forget to use the hashtag IHMHull on all your social media activities in the coming days. Your contribution matters in spreading the word and work of IHM. So, I'm in my 28th day on the job and I'm already loving it. Still a lot to learn and the fabulous IHM team has been entirely patient in answering my sometimes penetrating, sometimes repetitive, sometimes utterly stupid questions and I thank you dear team. IHM is now in its 38th year, not day, year, and it is still going strong. We are still relevant, we are still able to discuss, digest, disagree on the hottest topics of our sectors and we are able to move on. I feel certain that this meeting will be no different and that I rejoice in the fact that we are able to differ on our understanding and emphasize and focus points on this very important topic of inclusion which we are going to talk about in the coming days. IHM is the perfect place for diverse descent democracy as Goran Tomca speaks of democracy in his article that was written for this meeting. Our informality, our closeness and our friendships allow us to share and differ, stretch our views and minds and senses. On that note I realize this is a strange time for you Brits and we feel it with you and I could say all is going to go well because you already have a deal with Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland but I'm not going to go down that road. But I am going to say to you, you will fare well in the end and you might actually not in such distant future fare better. Sometimes nations and peoples have to go through very dark valleys and total confusion to reach a new path and I speak from experience as an Icelander 11 years ago. We often hear these days that we are living in times of turmoil and uncertain futures and I want to challenge that statement a little bit. It implies that this time is more of a turmoil time than other times before. I think we have certainly experienced worse. I think we have certainly been worse off. We have certainly had much less understanding in the world. In my view the future is clearer than in many previous times and the only real catastrophe that we are, sorry I'm having a hard time shifting and holding all these things, the only real catastrophe that we are not facing is that of global warming and if we don't get our act together and do something about that, we know the result. There is no uncertainty, we are just basically doomed. I think our times are clearer because the divisions and dirt in society once hidden has been coming to the surface. But, and this is important, our reality is clearer than before and what we have to do is to regain our social contract. We might agree that we have lost it, some might argue that we never had it and then there are also those that want to digest the meaning of a social contract. So we have a lot to talk about. But coming back to the turmoil and the uncertainties earlier, I think if we don't address that which creates division in society in the first place, we will get nowhere. It is a complex issue, it has very many layers but in my view there is one underlying factor which always creates division in society and that is unequal distribution of wealth. Let's talk and listen in the coming days. And let's listen again. Let's share an exchange, let's disagree, even argue with respect, let's use our strong network and let's enjoy each other's company in the next four days. Thank you. But before I give the mic to our great keynote speaker, I have a little announcement. We are going to have to change the program for time reasons on Saturday. Our general assembly has very many pressing issues to be attended to and the general assembly will be from four to six, not five to six. We are going to extend it for one hour, it's going to be a two hour session with very many important topics to discuss. Therefore, we are going to cancel, as we know it, the talk and listen session, but we're going to do it in a different way. And now I'm going to ask the advisors in the room to stand up. Advisors, please stand up. Please take a good look at them and the board members that are in the room and the staff also stand up. Try to see them and recognize them because these people are going to maybe be approaching you and they're going to try to approach as many people as possible in the coming days and ask you about the talk and listen question, which is what are the most pressing, hottest topics you think ITMs should deal with in our coming meetings and publications. Please feel free to come up to them as well and discuss with them. And this is going to be an experience of how we do the talk and listen session. Lastly, I want to give you her best regards from Anne Cecile, CBO Birkeland, our president, who unfortunately couldn't be here today. And on that note, I am very privileged to give the mic to our keynote speaker of the day, Siade Brown. I think I can troll it right now. What did you have to leave at the door in order to show up today? Good question. What did I have to leave at the door in order to show up today? Not much. But if you had asked me that question ten years ago, then my answer would have been everything. Ten years ago, I was 16 years old. I had just finished my final year of formal education and it was the only full year that I did in school. So I went to a pupil referral unit, which is where they send young people who are unteachable. I up until that point had been kicked out of two secondary schools. And so I went into my final year hungry and driven to get my GCSEs and to get out of the door as quickly as I could, because I really didn't enjoy school, but I knew that I should probably have something under my belt. After a year, I left with 11 GCSEs A star to C and I was the most rewarded young person to ever have gone through that pupil referral unit, proving that you can just study for a test to get an education in the UK. I left and I was psyched and I was like, OK, I'm going to go to college, I'm going to study, I'm going to be a psychologist, I'm going to change the world, blah, blah, blah. And I did about three months in college and realised quite quickly that I do not like to be taught in that way. I like to learn by doing. And so at the same time I was working, so I was doing full-time in college. I was working full-time in a sweet shop. I was living independently, so I'd actually left home when I was 14. And at this point I'd moved into the youth hostels systems in London. And I had also started to club promote in the evenings with my friends because it was fun and I liked clubbing. And I was like, OK, I need to, you can stay mama. OK, all right, I have a 10 month old baby, I get it. At that point I was like, I want to do something. I don't want to stay in education, I don't like being taught at. I want to do. And I went to a youth service called Connections, which doesn't exist anymore, but we should bring it back because it was one of the most important parts of my youth. And I spoke to a deviser there and she said, look, it sounds like you probably just want to set up your own business or do something. It sounds like you don't want to work for someone, it sounds like you just want to do your own thing. And I was like, yeah, you totally get me. And she was like, OK, cool, if you don't want to go to university, then what you should probably do is get a job as a receptionist in any type of organisation and just get some business skills, just understand how a business works. I was like, yep, that sounds great. And it's probably one of the best bits of advice I've ever been given because everybody else was telling me to go to university and I just knew it wasn't going to work for me and I didn't want to waste the money. So I applied for three jobs. One was a receptionist in a gym. One was an assistant in a law firm. Ha ha, the arrogance of a 16-year-old. And the third was a business community arts apprenticeship at a theatre called The Bush Theatre in West London, which was 10 minutes from my house where I grew up. I'd never heard a theatre before. I was so not interested that it was a theatre that I didn't even research it. I just saw business in the title and thought, oh, that's a shortcut. Great, so I could get an entry-level job with business in the title and then set up a company. And I went to the interview and had an amazing time and a really good chat with the two directors. And that's how I saw it, it was just a chat. And I spoke with the two directors and they said, what do you love about theatre? And I was like, I don't actually really like theatre, but I like watching film and I really like music and I really like magazines. So I feel like, I get what you guys do. And they were like, OK, cool. And they were like, well, I tell you what, we really like you, but why don't you go and see a play? And depending how that goes, come back for a second interview and we'll happily see you again. So I was like, cool. And I left and I went to see a play at The Bush and my tickets were booked, it was for a Saturday matinee of The Whiskey Taster by James Graham. And I remember going to the theatre, so it started at 2.30, so obviously I was late because who turns up early to the cinema? There's the trailers. So I got there and it was late. And this is The Old Bush, by the way, so this is a black box theatre above the O'Neils pub in Sheba's Bush and I knew the O'Neils really well. I didn't know the theatre, so it took me ages like walking up and down and being like, where is this place? And going into the pub and asking the bartender and him showing me a secret door. Anyway, it was really hard to find. I got in and the front of house, the duty manager was there and she was very cross and they'd held the house for me because they knew that I was coming because I had an interview and she was really angry and she kind of rushed me up the stairs. At this point, I didn't quite look like this, so I was wearing knee-high timber and boots. I had a massive jumper on which had some kind of slogan that was called to a 16-year-old. I had a big fur coat and I had massive earrings and headphones in and I looked around me and I saw every single person there was white, every single person there had grey hair and everyone, you know, Saturday matinee, and everyone looked at me and obviously being the last person, I went up the stairs, run in, bit annoyed but I couldn't go to the toilet first, run in and had to walk across the stairs to get to the only seat available which was in between two grannies and it was just so awkward and I remember sitting down and taking my fur coat off and being like, oh, I just don't want to be here. I'm looking around and seeing everyone staring at me like I was so different and I shouldn't have been there and I was like, you know, I'm just going to go and I was about to get up and then the lights went off and it went dark and it's like really awkward maybe so I went down again and the play started and 100% I got transported to a whole new world it just completely, it rocked me like I was transfixed I couldn't believe what was happening this thing in front of me, it was alive there wasn't a screen, it wasn't like a film it was alive, these were people they were talking and I could understand them it wasn't Shakespeare language I could understand them and if you know James Graham's writing he's amazing but the way he writes dialogue it's like you're sat in someone's in an office you're listening to people talking and you know them and they know you and I felt invited and I felt included and I felt this fire burning my belly and I was like, I want this, I want a taste I want to be part of this and I remember being shocked that they had sex on stage oh my gosh, are they actually having sex right now? so awkward and I remember them smoking cigarettes and being like what, we've just had the ban you can't smoke inside, is that real? and I remember smelling her perfume and she walked past me and I just remember feeling like a part of this world and I remember realising just in that moment that I could write too that anyone could write and wasn't reserved for dead people or for men and it was a real penny drop moment because until that point I didn't go to school I didn't do the school trips to theatre it wasn't part of my family culture it just wasn't a thing that I did and so it was like oh this is cool it's like nani, this is amazing so the next day or week after whatever I went to the second interview and I just gushed at them and was like this is it obviously you're going to hire me but anyway I'll talk about the place and I really went to town and I told them things they could adapt I told them things that didn't quite work I told them things that really did work I didn't realise that wasn't what you were meant to do but you know I was like this is great I mean here's my opinion and it was a really good chat and they said to me okay so why do you want to work here other than if you're really from another theatre is there anything else that's compelled you to this role and I thought about it I'm a young person growing up in Shepard's Bush I've never heard of you and I have so many friends that would feel exactly like I did coming into this space but this doesn't feel like a place for us and given that this is a community apprenticeship role I could go out and find those people and get them into the theatre and I didn't realise that I was designing this incredible community engagement strategy that had been sat there being like how do we do this it just makes sense I mean I'll do it and so I got the job and that's what I did I spent a year as the apprentice and the easiest part of my role was exactly that it was just going out and telling people I've fallen in love can we see this thing and I remember printing tickets off and going into the market and speaking to people and just saying look if you don't come I'll get fired and like you know and it was absolutely incredible and I had so much freedom and licence and they were just so impressed with me and were just so eager to hear my thoughts and I was included in so many different types of conversations it was absolutely incredible the hardest bit about my job was having to leave a bit of myself at the door every day and the longer I worked there the more of myself I left at the door because I realised quite quickly what success looked like and it didn't look like me it didn't sound like me and so walking into an environment where almost every single person in that organisation held not only a degree but a really good degree from Oxford or Cambridge they'd read the entire works of Shakespeare they could read Guardian interviews about having to google the words they were so clever and so put together and articulate and confident and strong just more than any of those things and so I made the choice to unconsciously at the time but I made the choice to assimilate and to leave parts of me behind at the door and that started from things like walking in, listening to bashmen on my headphones which is caravane music, it's very sexual and I would turn it down slowly as I walked through the door because I didn't want them to hear that or I would eat my chicken and chips outside in the park because I didn't want them to see that I could only afford 1.99 chicken and chips from Oxford Road for my lunch while they at the Cardo Salad and it was these kind of slow things that happened and then there were like bigger things and I remember being asked to make coffee for a programming meeting and I went into the kitchen and I opened the cupboard and there wasn't any coffee there so I went back in and said I'm just going to pop over to Gregg's and get some and the artistic director was like what? I'll come with you, I'll show you where the coffee is and she came in and opened the fridge and I was like why did you put coffee in the fridge? and she brought out like ground coffee and a cafetier was like look you poured it in and I was like mind was blown because to me coffee was instant and it just we didn't have coffee was instant and I remember just it was all of those kind of mini moments that I did up and made me feel so inadequate or unable to be me that the only thing that I could do was to borrow and was to look around me and be like well I'll take a bit of this and I'll take a bit of that and slowly I became a different version of me after a year and a half of working at The Bush and during that time I mean honestly it was absolutely incredible and we moved the theatre into the old library in Shepard's Bush where it is now and artistic director switched over so I got to work on some incredible productions and I became the assistant producer I got put in charge of the community engagement programme I got to rebrand it and reshape it and I was given so much agency and I was invited to give my opinion and I was kind of I was seen as the voice of the community which is actually quite damaging for an individual but I'll come on to that in a second so I had all this time feeling really empowered and I met the chief exec of the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre which was just ten minutes down the road and she offered me a new job to go and work for her at this point I was 18 and she offered me the job of to be a producer in her theatre because she saw an opportunity the Lyric at the time had and still has an incredible young people's programme and an incredible main house programme and there was nothing in the middle bridging the two together so Jessica wanted me to come in and create a new programme that did that, it bridged the gap it diversified the type of young people and emerging artists going into the industry because she could see that there was a problem and she could also see that because of my background and my experiences I could somehow find a way to not only find the types of people who were diverse to get into the industry but also create interventions and programmes that supported them to professionally develop I mean, come on, I was 18 and at the time I was like, is she mad? Who is this person, is she mad? Who would give that to an 18-year-old? and so my impostor syndrome would flare up, I mean if it hadn't been over the last year and a half in that moment it was like alarm bells ringing in my head like this is crazy, you can't do this, who do you think you are? I remember being so sure that they were going to take the job offer away that when the contract came in the post I signed it and then I ran out on my break from the bush to the lyric to hand it in person just in case they said that they'd lost it in the post or they'd somehow taken it back because I took too long that's how I was feeling and a week before I was leaving the bush there were drinks and a few people from the lyric came over to have drinks and I was really excited because I'm going to meet my new team and it's going to be great and I'm going to make new friends and I went over to join the conversation and one of the girls was saying have you heard that the lyric has hired a young person and made them a producer? and then everyone in the circle was like what, that's ridiculous and they just started slating this young person had been given this position and I literally felt like the world could have or the ground could have opened up and just swallowed me right there and then and it really reminded me that I can try as hard as I want to be like them but I never would be and just in that moment it was a real sharp reminder of who I was and how inadequate I was in to do this job and so that was the feeling I had on my first day of joining the lyric and I carried for a good year and a half after starting that position I'm going to leave it there and zoom out of my personal journey and look at the kind of wider picture of diversity and why it is so important so I can imagine there are I mean I know that almost everybody in this room is doing something on the spectrum and almost everybody in this room has an opinion about diversity and why it's important but I thought it would be helpful to why diversity matters so obviously there's an economic case for diversity which I think often people forget like so companies who are more culturally and ethnically diverse were 33% more likely to make better profit think about your turnover for last year at 33% on top of it this one I found particularly interesting so this was on the fourth so a diverse team are 87% more likely to make better decisions and you can see it goes up the scale so if you're looking at gender diversity that's 73% but if you're looking at age and gender diversity that's 80% and then if you're going to throw into your graphic diversity that brings that up to 87% I mean that is genuine proof that the more types of people you have working with you around you the better you're going to be and you're going to make more profits and then this one just makes a lot of sense if you have a diverse group of people trying to tackle a problem then they're going to have creative conflict because they're going to come at it from loads of different angles and shapes and sizes and that conflict is going to lead to innovation which leads to profit if you care about it the social case which I think is more my audience today this was touched on earlier in terms of the division of wealth or the distribution of wealth in this country and this statistic I come back to it every single year because it is just so shocking to me but despite only 7% of the UK population go into private school they make up 32% of our MPs 51% of our doctors 54% of our fit C100 CEOs and 70% of our judges I wonder what that would look like if we applied it to the cultural sector is this because only privately educated individuals are able to do these roles or is it because only they are given the opportunity so the Warwick Commission feels really old now but I remember at the time when it came out it was really good it was really good route and this was one of the quotes that really stuck with me in terms of having access to a cultural and creative education is an absolute it's an essential way of life and it hit me because I thought about my childhood and the things that I had access to and realised how much I had been denied the opportunities I had been denied and how different my life would have been if I had access to art intervention and whether that would have helped me to stay in school whether it would have helped me to stay in my house and whether it would have helped me to go to university and then finally this was a quote that was above my desk for a good couple of years for me the biggest social case for diversity is that audiences should look like taxpayers and then there's the common sense case which is my favourite so yw aww it just makes sense if you have a group of if you have a homogenous group of people who all look the same sound the same and have similar life experiences they're going to approach problems with a similar lens it just makes sense so once you add diversity into the mix if you bring different types of people they're going to have a much broader poor and richer understanding of the world and the way they see the world and through that you'll have more innovation better artistic outputs and more profit so when I talk about diversity for me I'm talking about walk of life I'm not talking about switching one homogenous group with another I'm talking about genuine opportunity for people who come from different places who have experienced different things who experience the world in different ways for me that's what diversity means a few years ago I founded a company called sour lemons and our mandate was to address the lack of diversity in the creative and cultural sector so at the heart that's me at the heart as if you can tell at the heart of sour lemons is the belief that any disadvantage in life can be your biggest advantage so your biggest sour lemon can become lemonade and this is an ethos I have carried with me for a very very long time and it's something that my mum used to say to me as a little girl it's something that I guess at the like I said for a big chunk of my career I thought that the things that made me diverse I needed to strip them away and leave them at the door in order to not embarrass other people make other people feel uncomfortable with me being there I needed to be a bit more a better people in order to fit in but by doing that I wasn't only denying myself but I was denying them and I was denying the organisations I was working for I was denying them the innovation and richness that comes of having different types of life experiences particularly when you've been served sour lemons so our model is really simple so we deliver leadership programmes for young adults who have faced sour lemon or two in life and they want to get into the creative and cultural industries and are finding barriers because of those sour lemons when I set it up it was with the belief that the impact I've been able to make over my career the qualities that make me a strong leader don't come from textbooks they come from my life experiences so my resilience comes from the fact that I've moved around to 16 different houses my resourcefulness comes from the fact that I left home when I was 14 my charisma comes from being a young carer and having to negotiate and speak to lots of different types of people and adults and knowing how to adapt myself to different audiences and these are all things that you can't learn in a textbook and so my belief is that young people or anybody who has experienced some kind of sour lemon life if they can flip it and see it as their biggest advantage is their superpower and our programme at the time was working at a big cultural centre in London called the Barbican centre and the higher up I got the less people like me I thought and I was often a minority in every sense of the word and I was often the poster girl for all things diversity and it really bothered me because on the one hand I was saying have I become palatable am I like the go-to person to speak on all issues diversity because I make people feel comfortable about this or have I taken up so much space that other people can't come in what's the problem so when I set up sour lemons it was the belief that okay cool I get to sit around these decisions making tables why can't they what is so special about me I don't want my story to be unique it shouldn't be but it is and so when I set up sour lemons it was with a hypothesis if I gave young adults who came from similar backgrounds to mine access to the same skills and knowledge and experiences that enabled me to succeed could they also go on and smash barriers for other types of other young people could they forge their own opportunities yes they can so our pilot was so so so successful we had over 20 partners who contributed towards it we had 12 young leaders they went on an incredible journey of understanding the power of their life experiences how they could use that to create change how they can create artistic experiences how they can process the things that they've been through the life experiences they share with their communities how they could use creativity and artistic outputs to share that and to demonstrate to the world 100% of them have now gone on to employment, training or setting up their own enterprises they're literally smashing life it's amazing but they said to me when they were with me in sour lemons it felt like they were in a bubble and it was so amazing and they realised how brilliant they are how easy it is to get into the industry once you know which doors to push or who to speak to or how to art someone for a coffee those things become really easy but now that they've left they still see the same barrier the barriers are still there that prevented them from getting in in the first place the difference is now they can just see them more they can articulate them better and they can really see the injustices that they face so I responded to that by developing a consultancy arm we now go out and deliver training and advise organisations on how to find young people who are diverse how to measure the impact of programmes and interventions that are set up to address diversity how to be more inclusive and my young leaders, my lemons they get paid to go and do that when I was thinking through the consultancy model it just made sense to me these are people who have been historically excluded from these kind of conversations I have organisations screaming out to me to come in and solve their challenges around diversity and my ethos is that it shouldn't just be me set a decision making table so when I put the three things together it was like great, you can pay I'll train up my young leaders you can pay them and they'll come in and they'll support you on that journey but we won't do it for you this is one of my young leaders Marissa and I promised I could not have paid her when she sent it but it is absolutely true sour lemons is important because it is led by someone who distinctly understands the struggle of young people who come from backgrounds that don't have equal access to opportunities that can help them that can lead them into fulfilling highly paid creative roles this is the same young leader who said to me a few weeks ago that until she had met me she didn't know that a woman of colour could be a mentor it's crazy she was 23 when I met her and all her 23 years she had never seen a woman of colour in the position of power a woman of colour who mentored her she hadn't seen it but not only by seeing me did it benefit her in many ways it helped her to know that she could also be a mentor too and she's now mentoring other young women and showing them that she can absolutely do that and that is the ripple effect of diversity of inclusion of empowerment that's the ripple effect it's not about saying oh I've got here I'm at the decision making table I'm going to close the door now it's about opening up and broadening it and sharing it and being role models and being advocates but like I said you can't just focus on the individual making lemonade it's not fair you know what? yes life has been hard yes you've had sour lemons but you know what it's okay just do this and this and this and then you'll be fine and off you go all that does is it denies it takes away the accountability of the people in power it says to them that it's okay to be exactly how you are if you're diverse and you need to fit into this system it doesn't work like that I came across this quote recently actually when I was preparing for this talk and it just it made my heart sing diversity is being invited to the party inclusion is being asked to dance and that's exactly it being more diverse is actually quite easy applying a quota and ticking a box is really easy it's not that hard because there's a whole talent pool of diverse people up there to pick from the harder bit is keeping that talent it's enabling it to thrive it's creating inclusive cultures and work spaces that allow people to show up every day as they are and not leave bits of themselves at the door when they walk into the building that's the hard bit so the ground could have opened up when that person said to me oh my gosh the lyricist is harder young person but it didn't and I went and did the job at the lyric and I went knowing that everyone there everyone there didn't want me to be there everyone there felt that I was a fraud and that I didn't deserve to have that job so I chose to work harder than anyone else I was in earlier, I left later I designed a program that won awards I then went and fundraised for it I focused on external partnerships I increased the diversity of young people by 50% in my first year as an 18 year old I designed a program that reached 800 emerging artists 50% of them were being me 51% of them were female that's incredible that's what happens when you put someone in a position of power and give them agency and autonomy it's also what happens when they feel like everyone else around them hates them and I just put my head down and got on with it so a year into my role and the theatre decided to apply quotas to the main house productions I was also the assistant producer on all of the main house shows at the time quotas were quite new I didn't really know how I felt about them but I knew I didn't really like them couldn't quite articulate it I didn't have the confidence to speak about it then we were producing a show and I would cast the young ensemble and the principal actors who we got for the show were all white and able bodied so I was then asked to make sure that the ensemble was diverse i.e. primarily being me and and I kicked back and was like no that doesn't seem fair you're asking me to compromise or you're asking me to put me and talent and make them compete surely we want the best people for the role but I was pushed back and said you just have to do this so I decided to make it my mission to go out and find the most talented young people of colour to be in the ensemble I reached out to partners who worked specifically with young performers who were diverse I did outreach I did everything I could I worked evenings and weekends I spoke to friends, I text people I did everything I could and I ended up finding a group of incredibly talented young performers to join the ensemble and they happened to be black and that bit felt really important to me that they just happened to be black that it had nothing to do with their talent it had nothing to do with the reason why they were on stage they just happened to be black I didn't know why at the time, like I said, I was 18, 19 I just knew it did so I got them on board and that's the diversity bit so I invited them to the dance but then I sat down with each and every one of them and worked out who they were as human beings not just as performers not just as people in the company but who they were what did it take for them to show up every day how much harder is it for them to get out of bed is it for them to walk into that rehearsal room and what do I need to do to remove those barriers and I found out things like one of the girls was a size double G bra and she couldn't press and she couldn't afford to buy a new bra so I went to the costume department and we bought her a new bra one of my guys was heavily in rent arrears and was about to be evicted from his house and homeless and he'd just been ignoring these letters in his drawer and I knew exactly what that felt like so I wrote a letter for him and it ended up going to court and representing him and getting his house extended and putting in place a payment plan another young person was so far in her overdraft that if we paid her all the money at once she wouldn't be able to eat because they'd stop her overdraft and then she'd be broke so we found alternative ways to pay her I showed up for every single one of those young people because I understood exactly what it felt like to walk into a building every day and not be able to fully be there that for me is inclusion that's the second bit it's making sure that there is nothing stopping them from being talented performers and that's it but that's the bit I think most people find really hard because it feels uncomfortable because once you start looking at somebody else and you start saying what does it take for you to show up every day you start to put that mirror back on yourself and you realise what it takes for you to show up every day but that's the good bit I think inclusion and diversity work should feel uncomfortable because if it was comfortable we'd be doing it already we'll be doing it well so those young people also at the time couldn't afford to do a 10 week engagement so it was a 4 week rehearsal and then a 6 week run and when I joined the venue they were paid expensive like £10 a day which I don't think you could do now but at the time that's what it was and I went to the chief at 2nd said I couldn't do that like if you wanted me to be in this show I wouldn't be able to afford to be here for free so we need to pay them and she was like I agree if you can go out and get the money then I'm happy to pay them and I was like ok cool and I went out and I got the money and I made sure that they got paid and that was another thing that again thinking of inclusion if money has never been a barrier for you then you're not trained to think of it in that way you just assume everybody can show up and that it's fine to be there so I like just to close because I'm keen to have questions we can't just focus on the individual making lemonade we really can't and so many schemes and diversity interventions that are out there do they focus on the individual and they say it's ok if you're being me we'll give you a bursary to show up it's ok if this is a thing that you have we'll do a tiny thing to remove it but we won't adapt to anything else we won't think about the systems that we've put in place that benefit people who look like us we won't think about all the other things surrounding you all the other things that we might be responsible for we'll just do that little bit and we'll feel really good about it this bit's a really big one for me on stage diversity is a temporary plaster it really is it doesn't address any of the root issues that underline why we don't have diversity on stage and I'm so proud and excited and happy to see the amount of on stage and on screen diversity that's shot up in the last couple of years it is so important I'm not standing here saying that that shouldn't happen but what I am saying is that until we diversify the types of people behind the scenes making the decisions writing, directing, producing, designing it's never going to be authentically true I have a friend who wrote a play called Lungs which is a beautiful play it's a two-hander and it's based on a couple who are middle class and educated and deciding to have a baby and the impact that might have on the planet a couple of years ago I was speaking to him and we worked out that that play had had roughly about 30 productions around the world at that stage it was amazing, he was amazing not one of those sorry only one of those plays which was the play that he was directly involved in cast a person of colour in either of those two roles however he himself is married to a woman of colour and that play was partially written on his own experiences I find that quite disturbing and what it tells what it tells us is that the lens that we are seeing the world through is the lens that makes the most sense to us so if we have people behind the scenes producing, directing, designing and in charge of casting and their default, their normal because it's what they see in their world is a white middle class couple and that's what's going to get presented on stage of course that's not the problem but if we have different types of people sat around there then that norm gets wider the final thought I want to leave you with today is that when you're thinking about inclusion it's the holistic picture it's not just one thing you can't just solve it with like one bit it's about looking at a person at the challenge and thinking like what are all the things that knock onto this so everything from language to onboarding staff to governance and decision making to how you write your contracts to inclusion how you show up for people accessibility the biases and privileges that exist within the current culture and just on that note I don't think there's absolutely nothing wrong with having privilege I feel really privileged because of my life experiences it's a different type of privilege but I do feel privileged just want to pull baby I that's like my mummy's senses going I do I feel privileged and if you have privilege you have power you can use it to create change you can use it to look around that decision making tables you can use it when you're casting a show when you're working with a company when you're fighting for the rights of someone so that's what your privilege gives you it gives you power to use it we can't change like who we are we can't apologise for the lives that we've lived we can't change the world that we were born into but we can definitely impact the future and I 100% believe that if we're looking at everything we do with a lens that is inclusive of a lens that starts with the question what did I have to leave at the door in order to show up today I guarantee we're going to start seeing movement thank you thank you it's very hot up here can I I'm going to get some water before I do questions does anyone have any questions comments, feelings, thoughts how did you overcome the barrier between the people from the lyric being very judgmental you joining their group and then facing them obviously you said you worked harder than everyone else but if you meant the end of it you were probably friends ish friendly yeah it's a good question so I realised that it wasn't everyone who felt like that and that there were champions there and that's actually a really important point that I missed out from my talk part of that power that I said that you have you can be a champion for someone just by showing up for them and that's what in every organisation I've ever had the power of mentorship the power of having someone who was cheerleading you who was coaching you, who was telling you like you can do this that's what changed the game for me I'd say the majority of the staff there were actually really happy for me to be there there was a few people who weren't to his life but I worked really hard to include them funny enough in what I was doing and to learn from their expertise and to recognise that I was an 18 year old I didn't know everything what could I learn from them and by doing that what could they learn from me oh yeah hi I can hear you oh yeah we need it for the thank you by the way I hope I wasn't talking too fast Teamwork, love it My name is Will from Australia thank you very much for that talk and it matches on a lot of what I work in what I do I work with the blind community in Australia and I was wondering what your take is on allyship and what makes a good ally and how you try to be a good ally when you're working with people who you don't necessarily share the same life experience which gives you that insight and empathy to reach out and do a really great job of catering for people's needs yeah that's a great question honestly an ally is just showing up for someone it really is and it's so much harder than it sounds I make it sound easy, it's not to be it's to call things out it's to call out injustice it's to recognise that there are things that we all benefit from that oppress others there are systems that I benefit from that oppress others and it's understanding that and recognising it and sitting with it and then using that knowledge to show up for someone else and to support them and to listen to them and to not throw judgement there's a really classic thing that people often do when you share your experiences because it's your truth we all have our own versions it's our truth but often what people might do yeah yeah but and just stop that bit just allow that person to have their truth just allow them to share it even if it isn't what you've experienced what you can understand just by giving them that space because often if you are a minority you're not often giving space so using your position of power to allow other people to take up space is what I think is a real ally how are we doing for time you're right I think they're passing the mic to someone oh it's you, it's you just wondering in the face of the social disparity growing in this country particularly how is this different than let's say Sir Sugar Allen being the poster boy of the Thatcherism is there a difference in terms of making examples which is politically correct and satisfying for a particular audience than actual implementation of change for the people that you work with I'm not sure I understand that could you reframe it please I just mean that maybe also for people not familiar with the UK context so there has been this thing that there is this kid coming from the hood and he's such a big star such a successful businessman and he becomes the force of running the machine which actually is dependent on underprivileged people so I'm just wondering do you feel a difference in the position that you are in and you're presenting than that and if so what is the difference and how actually those connected to such programs included in this diversity programs and inclusions are benefitting from this and what real impact does it have in their actual life Wicked, no I get that, thank you so yes I'm so different to Alan Sugar I honestly think one of the main differences is what I've said before about climbing the ladder and not kicking people down behind you and being an extend in it I think the consultancy model in sour lemons is the thing that makes the difference in all honesty, it's given agency to my young leaders it's valuing them for their time and paying them and it's putting them in positions of power because you could argue and say well they're young people so you're not exactly addressing leadership but young people can be leaders as I've demonstrated and by putting them in those positions they're not prohibited by like oh well all these things happened 10 years ago and God as it is now and they're seeing all of these inequalities that they're facing right now and they're putting in positions to change it I've put two of them on my border trustees and I've hired another one of them to run the second program this year it's things like that like it's not just lip service it's not just saying like and I think that was the danger that's why I set up sour lemons because I genuinely felt I was in a danger zone of being oversubscribed and looking at panels and being like oh yeah Shade's coming you know and almost it becoming like the safety thing and I also think just purely calling it out as I am doing that but I choose to work in depth so my model isn't about breadth of reach I don't need to work with 300 young people a year I work with 12, I tool them up I give them everything that they need in order to go out and then we support them to do the ripple effect and I think that's also how you make the change and you know now I'm getting asked to give speeches and I'm sending my young leaders to give them instead because they're just as equipped if not more equipped than I am because they're still young I mean I'm 26 I know some of you looking at me like what is she talking about but I'm old at heart I've got an old soul but you know hilariously some of them are actually my age it's funny but anyway it's putting people in positions of power that's the only way you change it we can't change the fact that well I mean hopefully we can but currently the statistics I showed about the 7% of the population who are privately educated but it's just about broadening that out and making sure that everyone has access to those opportunities so if we're in positions of power where we're hiring people or casting it's making sure that we consciously are making an effort to diversify not just based on one protected characteristics not just because someone has access issues or because someone is a person of colour it's looking at the whole spectrum of it and actually socio-economics is so much more important for sour lemons it's about socio-economics is not about race because race is one facet and I found myself in meetings where people would be looking at a brochure for marketing a show and they're like it doesn't mean it's diverse though they're like what does that mean what because there's not black kids on the front of it like what does that mean and so for me socio-economics is so much more important because it's what goes on underneath and often when I go and speak to young people so this is also the power speaking to young people so I go into schools a lot and I talk to assemblies and I start by telling them one version of me I'm in a war twinion blah blah blah blah then I tell them the other version and I was kicked out of secondary schools and I did this and I did that and I share with them the power of narrative and how you can not only change your own narrative but you can change the narrative of the people and that I think is the power I think someone like Alan Sugar maybe doesn't care about that he makes a lot of money