Future Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland: Design Advisory Group minutes - 28 August 2024

Attendees and apologies

• Prof. Ima Jackson (Recruited as project lead August 14-20 December 2024)
• Dr. Mark Wong (Co-Chair of Design Advisory Group), Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Research Methods and Social and Urban Policy Subject Group Lead, University of Glasgow
• Micheal Matovu (Co-Chair of Design Advisory Group), Co-Founder and Director of Radiant and Brighter Community Interest Company
• Miura Lima, Youth Advocacy Lead at Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)
• Ndaye-Lisa Badji-Churchill, Advocacy Officer at Shelter Scotland and Volunteer Manager at Black Girls Hike C.I.C
• Nusa C Parinussa, Founder-Director of ID.Y CIC
• Olalekan Oyedepo, Researcher, Co-Founder and Project coordinator at the Hope Project Scotland
• Rahela Cirpaci, Community Leader at Romano Lav

Apologies

• Adebusola Ramsay, Visual Artist, Independent Researcher and Data Linkage Practitioner
• Dr. Ankna Arockiam, Lecturer, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Artistic Director of Westbourne Music
• Monica Lee-MacPherson, Head of SHIMCA (Scottish Highlands and Islands and Moray Chinese Association) Inverness
• Samina Ansari, Former CEO Amina - Muslim Women's Resource Centre
• Shulamite Ezechi, CEO of ANYISO
• Zaki El Salahi, Freelancer in 'Dark Matter Education' and PhD Candidate

 

Items and actions

Key discussion points

Update on Design Advisory Group (DAG) members 

• introductions by DAG members to Rahela Cirpaci who is our new member from Romano Lav
• officially thanking Talat Yaqoob for her leadership and expertise. Talat is now stepping down due to workloads and caring responsibilities
• Nusa C Parinussa will be stepping down as project manager and reverting to DAG member. Thanking Nusa for all their work
• Ima Jackson has been recruited as a consultant project lead from the 14 August to the 20 December 2024

Recruitment to support work plan DAG activities

• the comms and tech roles went live this week. DAG will share dates for interviews to take place for these roles and seek those with capacity to support this activity. Particular expertise on creative technology or comms sought
• suitable candidates identified for the community outreach workers. Interviews will take place on the following week. Good progress with recruitment of all short-term recruitment consultant roles to support the agreed work plan
• the budget with Impact Funding partners (IFP) has been agreed. IFP to discuss in more detail the anti-racism fund release processes. There is now strand one and strand two of funding
• discussion on DAG members availability between September, October and November so IFP can be supported with anti-racism expertise. IFP will assess applications against their IFP agreed criteria. Co-chairs welcome all members to participate where they can
• Scottish Government (SG) stakeholder event: The agreed SG “race” equality stakeholder public engagement event has been postponed from the 4 September. Advised by SG details on future proposed dates will be available soon. Discussion about the concerns and risks of the ongoing information vacuum created by SG not publicly sharing update on the SG ambition for the whole “race” equality sector
• DAG member bios to be published on the public website are almost finalised. Thank you for sending information

Procurement update

• overall procurement of future AROS host organisations discussed evaluation criteria and processes which will need to be followed

Thanks and close

• the co-chairs thank everyone for their participation in the discussions and encourage to get in touch if anyone has any suggestions or concern

 Actions

• DAG members to share capacity to support recruitment of consultants with IFP
• DAG members to complete bios for SG website
• DAG to seek update of revised process and dates for “race” equality landscape stakeholder events
• set up of weekly rolling short life working group (SLWG) to support IFP and community engagement processes