Anti Racism Training at Bicon

I’m so excited to have two facilitators from the anti-racist educators to come and do our training, Abiọ́dún and Titi! https://www.theantiracisteducator.com/

We’ve been extremely lucky to have the sessions at BiCon this year paid for by the Equality Network, and our plan is (if this goes well) to hold further sessions every two months until every BiCon attendee is trained (approx 300 people in total). We know there are some we can’t reach, like ‘on the day’ attendees, but we will try our hardest to get to as many as possible and hope that ensuring a kind of base level of training for nearly all attendees will help.

The sessions will be 2 hours long, be interactive and take place over zoom. 25 people can attend each session. We will record one of these first sessions at BiCon 2020 so that people who need the training spread out over longer (can only do 1 hour at a time or similar access needs), can still participate. We will also ‘transcribe’ the recording into text as well so it can be read. We can run sessions by BiCon community members to catch up with them after about the bits they missed in the breakout rooms – but we really do encourage anyone who can to attend the proper session if at all possible.

The cost of the sessions after BiCon 2020 will be £10 a head. We will be proposing a vote at the BiCon DMP that the sessions are funded by Continuity money, but even if this is not the case we can crowd fund this training by selling tickets and get it started and moving along. I know I’ll personally happily pay £20 and bring someone along with me! It won’t be the end of our anti-racism education – but it’s a great start and I’m so looking forward to working with Abbey and Titi!

Times on 15 and 16 August will be 10am to 12 midday both days. You can sign up on a first come first served basis by emailing biconuk2020@gmail.com.

Remember after these sessions it'll be mandatory to attend before Bicon 2021 and might cost £10 a head, so please do get involved ASAP.

20% of tickets have gone already!

Thanks!
(Kate n Katy)

Facilitator 1: Titilayo Farukuoye is an activist, organiser and writer based in Scotland. Titi is particularly concerned with race, identity, liberation struggles and the climate. Organising with The Anti-Racist Educator and other black and PoC led organisations, they strive to foster a culture of anti-racism and meaningful, productive change to dismantle white supremacy and build a world that centres black, trans, queer and disabled experiences.

Facilitator 2: Navan N. Govender is a Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He holds a Bachelor of Education degree (specialising in secondary English teaching), and Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Applied English Language Studies, and a PhD in Applied Language & Literacy Education in the field of critical literacy. His PhD investigated how critical literacy could be used to engage student teachers with issues related to sex, gender and sexual diversity in South Africa. Currently, he is working to understand critical literacy's role in Scottish English language and literacy education as well as in initial teacher education.

Specific fields of study include: literacy studies; critical literacies; multiliteracies, multimodalities and visual literacies; transmodality; representation, gender and sexual diversity; critical discourse analysis; sociolinguistics; social semiotics; and social justice education.

Navan teaches on the Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme, offering classes in critical literacies and multimodalities as well as a range of English methodology classes for secondary schooling educators.