You can't spell empowerment without women!
Wednesday, 26 August 2020
Poster artwork by student Georgina Courtney-Cox.
Over the past few months, our Student Services team has been working tirelessly to support our students through the COVID-19 pandemic.
We will share a few highlights of their recent activities over the next few days. In this story, Careers tell us about an online event focusing on the careers and experiences of inspirational BAME women.
On 9 June 2020, Careers held ‘You can't spell empowerment without women!', an online panel discussion hosted by female Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) professionals.
Over 50 students listened to our guest panel share their career journeys, including the barriers they overcame and how they have achieved success. Students learned a great deal from hearing honest experiences from the panellists' lived realities, and we hope their stories continue to stay with them as they embark on their own career journeys.
Although this event had been planned for a while, it feels important now more than ever to listen to stories such as these, to share experiences and to learn from one another.
The guest panellists included:
- Alice Mpofu-Coles: Third year PhD Candidate Human Geography at the University of Reading, researching onidentity and transnational activities among young Zimbabwean diaspora in the UK.
- Farimah Darbyshire: Early Careers Health Programme Lead at theCity Mental Health Alliance.
- Sue Blackett MBA: Accounting lecturer at Henley Business School and Programme Director for the BSc Accounting & Finance programme.
- Ashley Fontaine: English Literature and Film and Theatre Graduate turned Tech-BasedDigital Marketing Assistant andaspiring Mental Health Charity Communications Officer and Arts Psychotherapist.
- Rohini Vaja: After completing her PGCE, she is looking to pursue an MA in Education and explore the potentialities of working within educational policy toensure the curriculum includes accurate representation of BAME groups
- Rachel Joel: Women's Officer 19/20, chaired the event ensuring students could engage with the panellists effectively and ask questions.
Lisa Holmes, Strategic Careers Projects Manager, and Anne Delauzun, Acting Head of Careers, greatly enjoyed working together to create this event. It was a real labour of love! Additionally, the poster to advertise the event was also beautifully designed by one of our students, Georgina Courtney-Cox.
Student Services
Careers is part of our Student Services team, who you can find more about on this Essentials webpage. You can reach the team by emailing careers@reading.ac.uk or calling 0118 378 8359.
The Student Services Reception team are continuing to answer questions from students, and can be contacted by emailing studenthelp@reading.ac.uk or by calling 0118 378 5555.