On the 30th of January BBC North at Salford Quays launched Divercity, ‘bringing BBC North together for a week of diversity and inclusion’.

The opening event was led by Alice Webb, Director of BBC Children’s and Tunde Ogungbesan Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Succession who talked about how the public sees the BBC and what measures have been taken in recent years to expand diversity within the organisation.

This was followed by two brilliant keynote speakers. The first was the force of nature who is Lemn Sissay, Chancellor of the University of Manchester, poet, broadcaster, playwright amongst many other roles. The second was Francesca Martinez, stand-up comedian, writer and actress with cerebral palsy who also set the audience alight.

Despite not having access to his carefully prepared slides (technical error), Lemn talked passionately about his journey of being excluded, how he personally dealt with it and what diversity meant. Francesca was hilarious about living with and accepting her cerebral palsy yet coming across much ignorance and bias as someone in the media and TV. She even recounted how she was told that audiences could be ‘scared’ of seeing her! Her message was that with all the talk about representation, the solution was easy: just do it!

Result CIC were pleased to be asked to contribute to the week of activities by holding 1-1 coaching sessions billed as: ‘Confident Conversations’ – for disabled staff and managers.’ These were taster sessions for staff who wanted to focus on a range of personal and organisational aspects. Staff said this was a great opportunity to talk openly and confidentially to disabled coaches who understood some of their challenges.

We look forward to developing our relationship with the BBC, looking ahead to the challenging strategic plan set by Director General Tony Hall for the BBC’s 2020 vision.

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