The first Race and Equality Network in person event took place on 2nd March
Published: 19 April 2022
On the 2nd March The Race and Equality Network held its first in person social event.
On the 2nd March The Race and Equality Network held its first in person social event.
The network, known as RaEN, was founded during Race Equality Week in February 2022 as a collective of staff and students based in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience who are people of colour or their allies who hold shared values of inclusion, representation, and diversity. The goal of the network is to provide a safe space to discuss contentious issues such as systemic racism in Psychology, and what it is like being a person of colour in our School. The network aims to highlight issues, achievements, offer mentorship, and to educate staff and students to provide a representative and inclusive experience for all. The network also provides people with lived experience of poor representation to discuss and collaborate on opportunities to diversify and decolonise the Psychology curriculum and engage in scholarship around this area.
Our first in person event had limited spaces, and these were all taken up by students keen to attend and meet others from the network. Our event was centred around speed-friending, like speed-dating but for friendships. Students would spend 5 minutes meeting another person from the network before moving on to the next person, all while enjoying pizza and sodas in a relaxed atmosphere with music playing in the background.
As a person of colour, it was a sudden powerful moment to see a sea of faces staring back at me that represented the diversity of our school. It was a sentiment shared by the students, with many coming up to me during the event to say how “seen” they felt and how grateful they were for an event of this kind and network that represented them. As one student put it “I shared the experience of typically being one of few non-white people in psychology related spaces, and it was refreshing for that not to be the case tonight!”
Our event demonstrated how timely the development of RaEN was and we hope to host more social and academic events in the near future. You can find out more about RaEN by visiting our site, or following us on Twitter (@RaEN_SPaN)
First published: 19 April 2022