Black History Month

As part of Black History Month, the Black Health Agency [BHA] launched a competition to inspire students across Manchester to explore their identities. Students were asked to complete the sentence ‘Being Black is…’ to express what the phrase means to them.

This competition worked well in conjunction with Manchester Academy’s Cultural and Diversity Awareness Week.

The BHA emphasised how very impressed they were by all the entries. However, out of hundreds of applicants, two of our very own Academy students were judged by a panel to be winners. On October 22^nd Solomon Banda and Moeishia Campbell, both Year 8 students represented Manchester Academy at a presentation event held at Manchester Museum.

Upon entry to the ceremony, Moeishia and Solomon’s poems were displayed on printed T-shirts. Moeishia’s and Solomon's T-shirts will also be displayed on a rotation at the Manchester Museum and then move to the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. Manchester Academy is also proudly displaying their work in the entrance hall. Solomon and Moeishia were presented with a Trafford Centre voucher and given their own T-shirt with their poem/ speech written on the front. 

The group were treated to a buffet and heard from the inspiring guest speakers Milton Brown – CEO, Parents of Black Children Organisation and Alex Williams – ex Manchester City Goalkeeper. The students were presented with their prizes by Mr Williams. Solomon acted as a fantastic ambassador to the Academy by reading out his poem beautifully and received lots of praise and admiration from everyone who heard it.

Congratulations to Solomon and Moeshia on their inspirational entries.

By Ms Upton
(Teacher in Charge of Religious Education and PSHE Co-ordinator)