Show Racism the Red Card Wales | Creative Competition

Show Racism the Red Card Wales showcased a new look to their Schools Creative Competition this year with the categories linking directly to the 6 areas of learning and experiences within the Curriculum for Wales. Prize winners, parents, teachers and guests such as; Patience Bentu from the office of the future generations commissioner, Carys Ingram from the FAW and representatives from local authorities, amongst others attended the Hilton Hotel, Cardiff to celebrate the achievements of young people across the country. All guests enjoyed a drinks reception and two course meal before the formal awards ceremony started.

Over 300 schools across all 22 local authorities in Wales registered for the creative competition, this year the highest number of schools in the history of the competition in Wales. This year’s challenges were broken down into, Expressive arts, Health and Wellbeing, Humanities, Mathematics and Numeracy, Science and Technology, and languages, literacy and communication with a Primary and Secondary age group for each challenge.

Previous overall winner Luchia returned to the venue she won her prize in last year to present the awards with Rhydian Bowen-Phillips. The pair started off inviting Dean Pymble, Campaign Manager for Wales at Show Racism the Red Card, to provide a brief introduction of the anti-racism education being delivered across Wales, before local rapper Mace the Great performed his latest tracks and started the awards in style.

Mace came back onto stage and discussed his work during the World Cup supporting Show Racism the Red Card before presenting the expressive arts category. This category challenged pupils to create a song, rap, performance, or speech with a strong anti-racism message promoting equality and anti-racism within their school. Terrance Road years 1-3 picked up the runners up prize with YGG Bro Ogwr winning the category for Primary Schools. Joe Evans picked up the runners up prize for the secondary school age group with Ethan picking up the top prize.

Yusef from Unify was our next guest speaker discussing the work Unify have developed and rolled out across the UK with their My Shirt, My City campaign with Adidas before presenting the Health and Wellbeing category. The challenge was designed for pupils to create a poster or banner that can be used in sports stadiums to tackle racism within sport and communicate an anti-racist message. Emmy Burke picked up the runners up prize for the primary school age group with Alex Rogers winning the category. Will Moore was our secondary age runner up with Eden Carpenter being crowned the winner by Yusef.

The Humanities category was next with pupils asked to focus on their local area uncovering and telling untold stories of people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds from their community. Dr Huw Griffiths presented the pupils with their prizes after discussing the work he’s done as a lecturer and historian on stories across Wales of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities’ contributions. Isra Hussein picked up her runners up prize with a message from Jason Mohammad who she had researched and created a webpage about. Theo Thomas picked up the top prize from Dr Huw for the primary school age group. Our secondary school age group received exceptional work, Zaki Hadi was awarded the runners up prize and Ava Hussein being crowned the winner.

Donna Ali was our next guest speaker discussing the work being completed to increase representation in the media through her company BeXcellence including her fantastic magazine. This can be found https://issuu.com/be.xcellence/docs/xcellence_magazine_issue_3_7_

Donna then presented the Mathematics and Numeracy category with the challenge focussing on using numeracy skills to create a physical 3D structure promoting, supporting, and embracing anti-racism. Cwm Glas primary school were the runners up, with Bibiol Lateef and Ilka Mayer picking up the winner’s prize for the primary school age group. Our secondary school age group was tough to decide again with Tom ­­Hurst-Hughes taking the runners up prize and Rhiannon Williams winning the top prize.

Michael Hayward who has supported the creation of Show Racism the Red Card’s education hub discussed how the hub has been created to support teachers with their anti-racism lessons across several different topics before linking the hub to innovation through the Science and Technology category. The education hub can be access here https://theredcardhub.org/

This category focussed on innovation and how pupils can create plan for how technology that can be used as a tool for social good to ensure that we create an anti-racist Wales by 2030. Arthur Edwards was our runner up in the primary age category before Megan Loveridge received the winner’s prize. Leo Evans was awarded the runners up prize in our secondary school age group and Ella Gunstone received the winners prize for her snapchat filter on anti-racism.

The last category of the day was presented by Jessica Dunrod Wales’s first Black children’s author who discussed the importance of representation in children’s books. The languages, Literacy and communications challenge focussed on creating a piece of writing on racism or anti-racism. It was able to be fictional or factual. Both the primary and Secondary age groups produced emotional impactful pieces with the prize winners performing on the stage. Alwand Omar was the runner up in the primary age group and Saratou Mbaye was awarded as the winner. In the secondary age group Ava Beckett picked up the runners up prize and Anabia Khan taking the top spot as winner.

Stuart Williams chair of Show Racism the Red Card’s Welsh Advisory Committee and policy officer at the National Education Union, the sponsor of the Welsh Creative Competition, presented the overall winner that was incredibly lucky to receive an apple iPad. He discussed the fantastic work he sees Show Racism the Red Card doing across Wales and how proud he is to have supported the charity for many years. The decision was incredibly hard for the judges but Saratou Mbaye was crowned overall winner of the Creative Competition 2023 and was invited back to the stage to be presented with her prize.

Saratou commented ‘it was fantastic to have won the overall prize, I wasn’t expecting it. I have loved today and think anyone who thinks about anti-racism should get involved in the competition.

This was echoed in the closing remarks of Dean Pymble who commented.

‘I think you’ll all agree that the young people have done a fantastic job creating their anti-racism themed artwork for this year’s creative competition. I’ve loved seeing the new six categories linked to the curriculum and the reach of the competition with schools across all 22 local authorities registering is just incredible. The judging panel had to work extremely hard to go through all the entries and to pick the prize winners we’ve seen today.  

Working with young people and speaking to everyone today I’m confident these young people will change the world and will push us to places we could have only dreamt of in terms of racial equity in both education and society.  

You’ve all been our first ever cohort through the new look creative competition and the work you’ve completed and will continue to complete will create positive change in your schools. So, thank you for your hard work. Huge thanks to all the teachers that have attended today and those that haven’t been able to attend the celebration for the hard work and support you’ve given to the young people and completing the paperwork, registration and submissions to us to make this year’s competition as successful as it has been.  

No one organisation or individual can make the change to create an anti-racist nation it is everyone’s responsibility to do everything they can to challenge racism in all its forms and move the nation further along on the journey of becoming anti-racist.’