Leeds’ Black Music Festival and the Legacy Awards are moving online this year

Imar Shephard pictured on stage at the Black Music Festival in Potternewton Park, Leeds, in August 2018. Picture: Simon Hulme.

The Legacy Awards, which showcases outstanding accomplishments in fields like health, youth and community impact, will be webcast on October 25.

And the Black Music Festival, which normally attracts 80,000 people to Leeds in August but was cancelled because of the coronavirus, will now be streamed online on November 7.

Both events are organised by community engagement organisation Black Health Initiative, from Chapeltown.

Heather Nelson, chief executive of the Black Health Initiative in Chapeltown.

Its chief executive Heather Nelson said the Legacy Awards would be staged behind closed doors and with social distancing at Leeds Town Hall on October 18. But people will still be able to see the “celebration and elegance” of the awards a few days later online. And she believes the event, which shines a spotlight on excellence by those seldom recognised, will take on an even greater significance this year.

Heather added: ”This year is even more poignant because of Black Lives Matter. We don’t say it as a motto or as an organisation, we say it as a lived experience. Black Health Initiative has always been about black lives mattering and we will continue, always, to be championing that.

“But the Legacy Awards this year will, I believe, be even more poignant because of the separation amongst citizens within the city.”

In April the YEP reported how the BHI’s other big public event, the Black Music Festival at Potternewton Park in August, had been cancelled because of the pandemic. The free event, which is funded through a Leeds City Council’s arts@Leeds programme, has gone from an estimated footfall of 5,000 when BHI took it over around five years ago to more than 80,000 in 2019.

Salute to Reggae in Millennium Square is another event organised by the Black Health Initiative.

Heather said: “For us the significance of Black Music Festival is that we bring people who love music of Black origin to one of the most deprived areas in Leeds. So they can see, not only is it safe but the music is also excellent. We support local artists and we have national and international artists.”

And music fans will not miss out this year as plans for an online version are already taking shape. Heather said: “We are filming it at the end of this month and it will be streamed on the seventh of November, so people can tune in on our social media platforms to see the Black Music Festival going virtual.”

BHI has been embracing technology old and new during the global health crisis to support people in disadvantaged communities. A lot of its programmes for younger people are now based virtually. Its counselling service is also being offered online, via telephone and in socially-distanced one-to-one sessions.

Older people, who used to attend its luncheon clubs pre-lockdown, have had food brought to their door by its Supporting Our Seniors (SOS) service. It has gone from 28 meals per week at the luncheon clubs to directly providing more than 170 meals over two days per week.”

Arts and crafts activities at Black Health Initiative’s Fusion Xtra Cafe.

The service was helped in the beginning by a Go Fund Me page and by a team of volunteers who prepare and deliver the meals. Its success has enabled the BHI to apply for funding, enabling it to develop telephone checking-in and befriending programmes. The Clinical Commissioning Group in Leeds is funding BHI’s work on mental health and the impact of the coronavirus within black communities.

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The Black Health Initiative was set up in 2006 but its origins go back even further.

The community engagement organisation grew out of an organisation called Black Community Aids Team (BCAT) which was founded in 1989.

But BHI has taken on a much wider remit, looking at how to address health, education and social care inequalities in black communities within Leeds.

It offers a variety of programmes looking at health and well being for adults, teenagers, men and women. Examples include BME Cancer Voice, which was launched in 2014 and was the first BME national cancer programme in the UK.

BHI chief executive Heather Nelson said: “As we have developed, we have positioned ourselves so we are the go-to organisation when it comes to the health disparities amongst the black communities and indigenous population.”

Its work on breast cancer has been featured on BBC Breakfast. BHI is run by a small core team who are supported by an “army of volunteers”.

Heather said BHI’s contribution could be summed up by an old Jamaican saying, ‘We’re likkle but wi tallawah’, She added: What that means is ‘We are little but we have a huge impact’.”

BHI doesn’t receive core funding and is dependent on grants. For more information see: www.blackhealthinitiative.org, ring 0113 3070300 or email admin@bhileeds.org.uk.