Empowering a new generation of Black leaders

Our new Black Leadership Empowerment Programme (BLEP) has launched which aims to produce and support the Black business and community leaders of the future.

Developed by the OU Business School, it emerged in response to racial inequalities exposed by the pandemic and highlighted in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests’ call for racial equity.

A two-year pilot will see an initial learning hub based in Manchester, followed by other ones around the country. There is already backing from the likes of The Prince’s Trust, AutoTrader, Manchester Airport Group (MAG) and Inclusive Companies with more expected to support the initiative.

A virtual launch is being held on Thursday 2 May (11:00) led by Dr Fidèle Mutwarasibo, Director of our Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership (CVSL) who is a Lecturer in Work-based Learning.

Fidele will discuss the course, which includes 150 hours of free learning on OpenLearn and two bespoke leadership programmes developed exclusively for BLEP, in a short video. The second badged open course (BOC) will launch this month, following ‘Introducing Black leadership’ in November which was co-authored by Fidele and former OU colleague Professor Owain Smolovic Jones.