{"id":468,"date":"2017-10-11T15:34:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T14:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/?p=468"},"modified":"2017-10-11T15:36:31","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T14:36:31","slug":"inspirational-speaker-programme-akala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/2017\/10\/11\/inspirational-speaker-programme-akala\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspirational Speaker Programme – Akala"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 9 October, saw BAFTA and MOBO Award-winning UK hip-hop artist, writer, social entrepreneur and historian Akala<\/strong> delivering a lecture at the Canterbury campus as part of the University\u2019s Student Success Inspirational Speakers Programme<\/a>. This aimed at developing a conversation around race and belonging in the academy, and as part of the Black History Month events here at Kent. The lecture critiqued epistemology and was entitled: \u2018A history of Black Britain.\u2019
\nAkala\u2019s lecture critiqued epistemology and highlighted the contribution of black people to the British society, scholarship and economy. With references of black people\u2019s predecessors from the African sub-continent, Akala took us on a historical journey which dated back to the pre-colonial era. Akala explored the influence of race, class and political structures in promoting social inequality and maintaining control over minority groups. Uniquely, Akala explored racialised identity and highlighted how this poses barriers to access and progression.
\nDr Wayne Campbell, Director of Student Services,<\/strong> opened the proceedings to over 400 students, staff and external delegates.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nThe lecture was preceded by a fantastic spoken word and vocal performance by Kwame, President of the Medway Afro-Caribbean Society,<\/strong> and Esere KJ a stage 2 Psychology<\/strong> student. This was followed by a musical performance by Carris-April Addy, a third year student from the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science. <\/strong>
\nJacob Bondzai, former president of the Afro-Caribbean Society<\/strong> introduced the keynote speaker Akala to a resounding applause by the delegates.
\nFollowing a most inspirational, edifying, informative lecture, Akala was presented with a token of appreciation on behalf of the university by Amanda Nsubuga, a 3rd Year Student Artist from the School of Music and Fine Art.<\/strong> This was in the form of an artistic recreation of Akala\u2019s image.
\nAaron Thompson, Vice President (Activities) of the Kent Union<\/strong> closed the evening\u2019s proceedings.
\nThe evening\u2019s activities was concluded with a non-traditional meet and greet session, where Akala provided delegates with the opportunity to take a \u2018selfie\u2019 with him.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday 9 October, saw BAFTA and MOBO Award-winning UK hip-hop artist, writer, social entrepreneur and historian Akala delivering a lecture at the Canterbury campus as … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40838,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6598,1,153492,133891,153669],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40838"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/studentsuccess-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}