Collaborating with sector, specialist and community organisations to tackle all forms of hate and drive forward culture change at Middlesex University and beyond.
This was a hugely collaborative and far-reaching project, bringing staff, students and community groups together.
A short film, produced by MDX students in 2020 and shared widely across the borough, highlights the extraordinary efforts the local community went to in supporting each other, in what Esmond Rosen (co-Chair, Barnet Multi-Faith Forum), described as “an excellent production of togetherness”.
As well as creating CV-building opportunities for MDX students, the end-of-year showcasing event for the 2018/19 Building Bridges campaign, galvanised a growing network of partners and acted as a precursor to the launch of the Barnet Fairness Commission.
It was attended by over 200 people, including the Mayor of Barnet and a raft of organisations such as the Met Police, Barnet Council, London Village Network and Mencap.
We have strong working relationships with local organisations to increase reporting of hate crime, particularly during Hate Crime Awareness week.
In 2019, we partnered with the Met Police, Barnet Council and Mencap to deliver training to local schools on reporting and stopping hate crime.
This work has led MDX to be invited to become a hate crime reporting centre; a community resource where anybody can report a hate crime.
MDX students produced a short film for the launch of the Violent Crime Prevention Board (VCPB) in 2018 which was shown at New Scotland Yard and now features on the VCPB website.
Collaborating on ‘Stand with the VCPB’ paved the way for further collaboration work to promote community cohesion.
In 2018, MDX students produced a film for the Met Police’s event “Safe4Faith” to highlight the role played by female members of the community in tackling knife crime.
In 2019, we participated in ‘CombatMisconduct’ – a project led by Against Violence and Abuse (AVA) which, in collaboration with Office for Students, AdvanceHE, Universities UK and 7 other universities, developed evaluation and impact assessment tools for responding to sexual violence.
We also established a Community of Practice in 2018 with 5 other universities and Universities UK to review the implementation of Pinsent Masons’ 'guidance on managing misconduct which may also constitute a criminal offence'. This in particular focuses on responding to allegations of sexual assault.
As part of a collaborative project with Universities UK in 2019, MDX students addressed issues such as cyberbullying, online hate speech and tech-based stalking,
We also provided input on sector guidance for tackling online harassment and promoting online welfare in which we were sighted as a model of good practice.
At an event hosted by the British Computer Society to launch this sector guidance, a number of MDX films were showcased.
We are supporting the sector-wide Mentally Healthier Universities initiative and co-presented at Universities UK’s annual conference on Mental Health in November 2020.
Short films created by MDX students were shown at City Hall for #ThriveLDN in 2019 in support of World Mental Health Day.
Collaborative work to protect MDX students during the COVID-19 pandemic has been reported in The Guardian.
We also contributed to sector guidance on domestic violence and abuse (see Beginning the Conversation and Continuing the Conversation) in which the student-made film, He Loves You Not, is provided as an example of effective campaigning.
The film has subsequently been used by the Independent Advisory Group on Domestic Violence in the London Borough of Brent, in partnership with the Metropolitan Police.
Want to get involved? If you're part of a local or national organisation that would like to collaborate with the Changing the Culture Initiative, please email Ben Serlin, Senior Programme Manager.
