Church leader Rev David Shosanya hopes this groundbreaking symposium will start ongoing discussion on raising aspiration and success in the black community

Rev David Shosanya

Taking place on Saturday October 17th at the Commonwealth Club in Central London, the State of Black Britain Symposium aims to help Britain's black community take stock of its achievements and challenges and devise plans to facilitate its future development and progress, creating a forum that initiates and facilitates relevant conversations across black communities locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.

The event will consist of a series of four panel discussions on:
Religion Politics & Law and Order
Family, Education and Young People
Economics, Enterprise and Development
The New Future of Black Britain

The audience will also have an opportunity to pose questions and take part in discussions that will arise from points made.

With such a key event taking place in the UK, Jonathan Bellamy wanted to find out more. He interviewed Rev Shosanya, organiser of the event and co-founder of community project Street Pastor's on his City Drive radio show.

Jonathan: A lot of people will know of your work with the Street Pastors because it's very influential in many cities, isn't it? We don't want to focus on that now, but just give us a quick overview of the impact and effectiveness of that.

Rev David Shosanya: It is very influential. It's in over a hundred sites at the moment in the UK. There are about 70 or 80 sites waiting to come on board. It's over in Jamaica; it's in Barbuda and Antigua. There are enquiries from New Zealand, Australia, around the world. But here in the UK it's making a big impact in some places; in London and Southwark for example. Police have shown a 97% reduction in crime, in the period that Street Pastors have been on the street. So it's making a huge impact. But more than that, I think, it's having the impact of building bridges between churches and between churches and community groups.

Jonathan: Fantastic. It's a great work. We want to focus on this new initiative that you're bringing through; it's called a symposium on the state of black Britain. Is this something you felt passionate about and wanted to do for a while?

Rev David Shosanya: Yes. It's something I've had in my heart for a long time. I've talked to lots of people about it. In actual fact I was on the board - management board for Street Pastors and I stepped down specifically to do this; because we're facing in my view an opportunity in black Britain at the moment. There are lots of negative stories about gun and knife crime, but there are huge strides that black communities have made; huge contributions that we're making, and a huge contribution yet to be made. But we need to start from a point where we know exactly where we are. So I said to the people; listen we need to have this symposium that looks at social policy, that looks at political policy, and looks at some of the contributions we're making in different fields around the country and begin to say, actually let's measure that contribution in terms of our active citizenship, instead of our contribution to the economy, our breakthroughs in education and so on and let's begin to encourage our community to do even more than we're doing to build cohesive and coherent communities across the UK.

Jonathan: You've brought together quite a few influential voices. Can you share with us some of the contributors and what they're going to be bringing?

Rev David Shosanya: We've got together what I would classify as some of the best brains in black Britain, and some of the most potent practitioners. We have James Cleverly who's the Mayor's advisor for young people, ambassador for young people, he'll be there. We have another man by the name of Professor Ben Bowling, who is a professor of criminology at Kings College University. We have Les Isaacs who is one of the co-founders of the Street Pastors. Angela Sarkis is another key player. Levi Rootes, he's just got a new television programme, The Reggae Reggae Sauce guy. We've got people from the Small Business Council. We've got key church leaders like Ade Omooba who runs Christian Concern for the Nation. We've also got three prospective parliamentary candidates, for each of the parties that will be thinking about the future. In all there's about 37 people participating. Then we have two keynote speakers. One, Lord Victor Adebowale, who is the chief executive of Turning Point and the Chancellor of Lincoln University and then we have Yvonne Brewster who's one of the leading luminaries in terms of the theatre world in the UK. So we've got a good group of people coming together.

Jonathan: Tell us what your aims are then. What are you hoping to achieve, and how is that going to convert into action points that come out of it?

Rev David Shosanya: Well. Let's just start with the action points. We're planning to transcribe the symposium so everything that's said will be recorded. Then we'll be looking to turn that into action; because don't forget it's not just a talking shop. We'll be measuring it against existing social policies and political policies for each of the parties. But what we really want to do is we want to create an opportunity to bring together leading thinkers, leading practitioners and people from across the UK black communities because there is not just one black community. There are people from Africa, from the Caribbean and with each of those continents there are different groupings of people. So we are saying, how can we create a dialogue between those groups of people who constitute black communities; so that we can then create a more constructive dialogue with the rest of society, so that we can make a contribution. Then we're saying, one of our aims is to analyse and to evaluate where we are as black Britons. There's a guy called Du Bois who's this famous African American historian. He's now dead, but what he did in 1890 was to evaluate - begin a process of evaluating the state of black America. Much of the conversation that takes place now is rooted in some of the research that he did way back in the nineteenth century. So we want to say, what are some of the real measurable contributions that we're making. Then we want to say how do we move forward from this point and make a difference for ourselves; make a difference in Africa, make a difference in the Caribbean. Also how can we get engaged in social, political and economic forums across the country, so that African communities and Caribbean communities can be seen as part of the wider society that we live in? Those are our aims.

Jonathan: Fantastic. Now obviously the symposium needs to take place, to kind of unpack the different thoughts. But before you go in, who do you think really has to take a most significant role. Do you think it's local government, do you think it's black community groups or even local church. I mean who really should have the main impetus to contribute?

Rev David Shosanya: The main impetus unequivocally must come from the church. The black churches in particular. We are by far the most coherent, cohesive, organised group. We have a depth of social capital that other groups don't have, simply because what we do is a natural consequence of our faith. We have a commitment and a social network that nobody else can parallel in this country in terms of black communities. Because even the people that are shooting and killing, or the people that are going to pursue further education or sports or whatever; all find their roots in the black church through an auntie or uncle and so on. So unless the black church, which is a sleeping giant, wakes up and begins to flex its muscles, we're going to continue to make miniscule strides forward. We need a coherent, the commitment, the determination, and the organisation of the black churches - at a national level. This is what we're trying to do. Let's create a dialogue at a national level, let's get some key leaders there and then let's allow that information to cascade downwards through multiple medias, Facebook, MySpace, looking at emails, all sorts of podcasts, texting, so we can begin to mobilise black churches. May I just say, people out there are looking for the church to make a difference. Everybody that I've spoken to in any significant position of responsibility is saying, you know what - we've been waiting for someone to grab the bull by the horns and begin to wrestle with this issue. So I think we're right on course for some success.

Jonathan: You mentioned right at the beginning of this interview that you felt that this was a time of opportunity for black Britain. I imagine even the election of President Obama contributes positively into that sense of change and opportunity. What would be your hopes for black Britain in terms of a change within the black community?

Rev David Shosanya: I think really it would be - firstly and above all - to believe that we belong. Because there is still a sense of people in the black community feeling that they do not belong. In the Bible there's a time where Israel got taken into captivity, the people of God and God said to them, you're in captivity, but you're to love the land because then if you love the land then it prospers. You see as black communities we haven't sometimes loved Great Britain. As a result it's difficult to prosper in a place where you're not actually feeling any affection for. So above all, I think our hope would be that we get the sense of belonging. That we're black, we're British, there's no inconsistency between the two. However we need to recognise that we can begin to exercise active citizenship in this country. Let me just say about the Obama point; it is a very big motivational factor; but even more than that, at the moment there are a number of global shifts taking place around the world. The economic systems are beginning to be shaken and they are being re-configured. You've got political systems that are coming down, political systems that are going up. You've also got social movements that are emerging. So, we as black communities have got to learn to relocate ourselves within a rapidly shifting culture, so that we can be relevant to other groups within our society. One of the things that Obama has taught us is this, in the Bible it says, when I was a child I spoke like a child; but now I'm a man I put away childish things. Some of the things we said as black communities are childish for the context in which we live in. We need to grow up now and have adult conversations amongst ourselves and with other people, so that we can make the contribution that we can readily make, if we're given the opportunity.

Jonathan: Rev Shosanya thanks very much. We pray that your voice and the voice that comes out of this symposium would be heard very clearly.

Rev David Shosanya: Thank you very much.