IT'S BLACK HISTORY MONTH!

October is Black History Month and our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group are bringing a number of initiatives to ARL to help us celebrate, including a number of prize draws!

There are so many ways you can get involved – from following the 31 days of interesting facts and black history on Yammer, to celebrating ‘black’ music at one of our stations. “Keep an eye out on my Yammer posts where I post daily of how black figures from around the world have contributed to the world we live in today,” said Aliyah Abdulla, head of procurement and member of the EDI Steering Group.

ARL are also hosting book drops at schools this year. “This year we are doing book drops,” added Aliyah. “We have some amazing books written by black authors that we want to share with colleagues across the network.”

The EDI Steering Group are putting together a book of our own – a cookbook filled with wonderful, wholesome, healthy and fulfilling dishes from various cultures, and we are looking for your contributions!

“We are trying to put together a recipe book with dishes from various countries, so it would be amazing if our colleagues could share some of their recipes which will be featured in the recipe book,” said Aliyah. “There is also a prize to be won for the best recipe.” To submit your recipes, please follow this link or send them directly via email to Theresa.Opoku-Ware@arrivarl.co.uk and TalkDandI@arrivarl.co.uk.

That’s not your only opportunity to win a prize, though. “We have a few competitions which we would encourage people to get involved in, including children's poetry in celebration of Black History Month,” said Aliyah. We want our colleagues’ families to get involved in the month-long celebration by encouraging the little people in our lives to get poetic. Send your contributions that describe Black History Month to Aliyah.Abdulla@arrivarl.co.uk and TalkDandI@arrivarl.co.uk. There are exciting prizes up for grabs!