The Mandela Community Centre

27/04/2026

DARE – Derby Alliance for Racial Equity TODAY!
This is about more than a meeting.
It’s about who gets heard, who gets seen, and how we move forward together.
We’re building something real in Derby — a space to connect, to speak honestly, and to take action on the issues that matter.
Monday 27 April 2026
6:30pm – 8:30pm
MOSAICC, Ground Floor, Stuart House, 15–23 Green Lane, Derby DE1 1RS (OPPOSITE THE THAI BORAN)
What to expect:
Shaping the direction of DARE together
Strengthening our collective voice
Update on ID provision for young people (now addressed nationally)
Open conversation on what racial equity in Derby needs right now
Just real people, real conversations, and a shared commitment to change.
Come if you care about fairness.
Come if you have something to say.
Come even if you’re still figuring it out.
CONNECT | COLLABORATE | TAKE ACTION
Let’s build a stronger, more united community, together.
For more info: [email protected]

25/03/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CZfwSjhhw/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Today, International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

We are asked to remember.
But remembrance without truth is ritual.
And truth without action is comfort.

Let us be clear about what we are remembering.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Not a metaphor. Not a general idea of exploitation. Not something to be softened or relabelled until it loses its meaning.

Millions were taken.
Not numbers. People.
Whole lives interrupted. Futures stolen before they could begin.
Bodies turned into labour. Names replaced. Languages erased. Culture ripped away.
Families broken in ways that still echo.

This was not a moment of failure.
It was a system of extraction. A system that’s lasted for hundreds of years. A system that was designed, financed, enforced!
A system that decided some lives were inferior, expendable and worthless, so that others could rise, conquer and thrive.

And that decision did not disappear.
It adapted. You can still see it.
In who holds wealth and who does not.
In whose pain is recognised and whose is explained away.
In the quiet inheritance of advantage and the quiet inheritance of loss.

So today cannot just be about looking back.

Because apology on its own asks for closure without repair.
It asks those still carrying the weight to accept words, while the benefits remain where they were placed.

That is not justice.

If we are serious about remembering, then we must be serious about repairing.

Reparations are not about blame.
They are about balance.
About recognising that what was taken is still unpaid.

Because this is the truth we often avoid:
the wealth did not disappear.
It settled. To repair is to say we see it. Fully.
And we are willing to change what has been left untouched.

Not symbolic change.
Real change.
Material. Structural. Lasting.
Because dignity cannot exist where its conditions are denied.

There is a line often attributed to Desmond Tutu that stays with me:

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Today is not a day for neutrality. It is a day to remember with honesty.
To honour with depth.
And to act with courage.
Not just remembrance.
Repair. Not just words. Justice. Equity Change
REPARATIONS NOW!

17/02/2026

A giant has fallen…

There are some lives that do not end when a body fails, because what they built lives on in the courage of others.

Reverend Jesse Jackson was one of those lives.

He stood in the long river of struggle for justice, walking with those who marched, speaking for those who were silenced, and insisting, again and again, that dignity is not a privilege but a birthright. He understood that civil rights were never only about laws; they were about humanity, about bread on tables, about children believing their lives mattered.

Like all of us, he was human. He made his share of mistakes and, at times, revealed the feet of clay that remind us leaders are never saints, only people carrying heavy responsibilities in the full glare of history. His legacy, like that of many movement leaders, is complex: human, flawed, and yet profoundly influential.

What endures is the courage to stand, the willingness to speak, and the stubborn belief that hope must be organised, spoken aloud, and defended in the company of others.

Today we do not only mourn a man. We honour a life of service, conviction, and relentless faith in the possibility of justice. And the greatest tribute we can offer is this: to keep going, to keep building, to keep believing that a more equal and compassionate world is still worth fighting for.

Rest in power, Reverend Jesse Jackson. Your footsteps are still echoing.

Jesse Jackson, a giant of the civil rights movement in the US and two-time presidential candidate, has died. Follow the latest as tributes pour in.

07/02/2026

Just a quick reminder that the DARE (Derby Alliance for Racial Equity) initial organising meeting is today.

Time: 4:00–6:00pm
Venue: MOSAICC, Ground Floor, Stuart House
15–23 Green Lane, Derby DE1 1RS
Right opposite the Thai Boran Restaurant
We will be holding the meeting on the second floor so please call 07779560284 if arrive after 4pm. We will come and let you in.

Tea and coffee from 4:00pm, with the meeting starting shortly after.

We’re looking forward to an open conversation about whether there is appetite in Derby to build a strong, independent, community-led racial equity alliance.

All welcome.

06/09/2025

We are now open for Self referral and referrals from professionals