Celebrating Culture

'NO MORE SILENCE' ZINE

In 2020/21, The Students’ Union and Library team at UWE worked together on creating a Zine, to allow students to share creative pieces around stories, comments and views on diversity at UWE Bristol and beyond.

In 2021/22, we invited students and staff to read it and share it with their course mates, colleagues and friends. Read the Zine here.

We also invited students to attend one of our Reading groups in the autumn term to engage with the zine. 

 

EQUITY IN COLLABORATION WITH THE STUDENTS' UNION AT UWE SPEAKER EVENT

SAYO – SELF-REALISATION AND JOURNEY TO SUCCESS

Paul Olomolaiye, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Equalities and Civic Engagement, welcomed the inspiring social media influencer SAYO who gave a powerful talk about her journey thus far, including when she realised her true potential, and how she went about achieving her ambitions.

Woven into the talk Sayo performed "Kpoetry" - an exaggerated spoken word performance bringing together parts of her Nigerian heritage and British upbringing to the delight of the audience who had joined the online event.

The talk was followed by a wonderful Q&A session hosted by Rania Regaieg, Vice President Community and Welfare from The Students’ Union at UWE, when Sayo spoke candidly about techniques that empowered her to overcome any challenges.

 

BIOGRAPHY

Adèsayò Tàlàbi is a writer, poet, presenter, creative, tech founder, award-winning journalist and all-round natural-born performer. Sayo began writing and performing spoken word poetry from a young age, but it was lockdown where her online persona really rose to fame. With her legendary grey fur coat and red lip, Sayo began performing her "Kpoetry".

With millions of impressions across her clever and comical words, it is clear to see how Sayo's audience rose by 10 thousand followers per week during the UK lockdown. More recently, Sayo has seen opportunities arise offline, having hosted a radio show on Reprezent, featuring in Season 2 of Sky Art's "Life and Rhymes" and is working on a major documentary with a mainstream TV channel.

 

QUOTES FROM THE AUDIENCE ON THE NIGHT INCLUDED:

'Thank you for talking to us. It has been so inspirational and exciting!!'
'What an amazing event - Really motivational!'
'Loving the energy in the performance!'
'I love your performance so much.'
'A truly phenomenal young woman. It was a pleasure listening to your very entertaining and riveting stories. Wishing you all that’s amazing for the future.'
'That was amazing! Thank you. Incredible performance!!'

Watch the talk here and find out more about SAYO by following her on Instagram @Simplysayo, Tik Tok Simply_Sayo and Twittter Simply_Sayo.

 

IN MY LANGUAGE

This project is being led by the Vice President for Societies and Communications, Samuel Ikpe for the second year in a row. 

In my Language is a programme set out to enhance better communication skills between students and educate them more on the different languages spoken across the University. At the start, it was difficult to decide what languages would be used to kickstart the project. Therefore, it was decided that students received information on pleasantries in various languages as this was seen to be the first form of conversation when people meet. To accomplish this, a focus group of students who spoke different languages was created ranging from Swahili, Somali, Shona, Oromo, Patois, Pidgin, Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Ibibio, French, Spanish and Arabic. A script was created to help structure their speech as seen below, and they were asked to present in their various languages.

Make sure to follow the SUatUWE Instagram page as well as Facebook to stay updated.