It's Black History Month

Being an ally means moving beyond short-term or performative gestures and taking real, long-term action. In the workplace, in places of education and learning, and in the public sphere, this means having policies in place that achieve real outcomes. As an individual, it means actually practicing what you preach.

Catherine Ross
Black History Month Magazine editor

We’re using the learning opportunity presented by Black History Month to familiarise our members and colleagues with Malawian culture and tradition.

Every week we will share a ‘Postcard from Malawi’ to give you some background on this incredible country and further reasons to support Our Malawi Partnership.

Centralengland.coop/malawi

A Postcard from Malawi

The potent power of your purchase

When you buy Malawian products, you will be assisting the local farmers with asset acquisition as some may buy things like bicycles, motorcycles, solar lighting systems and furniture.  Or you will contribute towards buying livestock, which is essential to farmers getting animal manure from goats, pigs, cows and also poultry to help organically improve soil fertility.

When buying Malawian products, you should know that you will be assisting families to improve their livelihoods while playing a significant role in helping our country, Malawi in progressing towards a number of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals such as:

1: End poverty, 2: Freedom from hunger, 3: Healthy and wellbeing for all,4: Quality education 5: Gender equality, 8: Decent work and economic development 13: Action on Climate change 17: Global partnerships for sustainable development on finance, technology, capacity building on trade and systems.

This is being made possible through Our Malawi Partnership based on Cooperative Principle number 6 - Co-operation among co-operatives.

Most importantly when buying Malawian products, the British buyer will be helping our country enter the much-needed foreign exchange market, which currently is very scarce, and in doing so doing they will assist our government to ensure that importation of indispensable things like medicine, fuel, etc. is sustained for more of the general population.

When you buy products from Malawi through Our Malawi Partnership, we address the issue of co-existence as we uphold cooperative principles, values and practices in building a better world through cooperation.

We uphold the slogan ‘Cooperatives Happy family’.

Ubale! (Chichewa word meaning Partnership)

John Mulangeni Nkosi
Executive Director
Malawi Federation of Cooperatives

Great Black Britons

Spotlight on

Professor David Olusoga OBE - Award-winning writer, historian and broadcaster

The University of Manchester’s Professor of Public History regularly explores what it means to be Black and British, and the role of Black History.

David Olusoga was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to history and community integration. He specialises in the British Empire and how we experience its lasting effects in modern society. David has presented historical television programmes on the BBC. His television credits include Civilisations, Black and British, Our NHS: A Hidden History, A House Through Time and the BAFTA award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners.

Experience some of Professor Olusoga’s pioneering research through his numerous books, films and interviews.

Our actions, not words

We’ve introduced a new recruitment system which is better at capturing inclusion data for our new starters. Inclusion data is personal data and includes ethnicity as well as gender, sexual orientation and disability.

Increasing our diversity data is critical, not only is it our best way to gain insight into how inclusive the Society really is, but it will also move us a step closer to reporting on ethnicity pay. We want to improve our diversity data and we’ll continue to look at ways we can do this.

Find out how you can take action

Start by learning more about the issues

Visit www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/ for political news, current views and vital information around Black History Month