Panel: Changing the Narrative

Alice Parsons, Castles in the Sky Projects

Alice Parsons is a Creative Producer and Curator who lives and works in Bradford. Originally from Liverpool, Alice runs Castles in the Sky Projects - a platform celebrating LGBTQIA+ heritage and creativity through events, drag, and community projects across the North of England. During Bradford’s City of Culture year in 2025, Alice curated a range of exciting LGBTQ+ events and projects, working closely with members of the Bradford Gay Switchboard and others to celebrate and archive their experiences as part of the city’s LGBTQ+ history. She also helped to create this resource pack, helping share the journey of the Bradford Gay Switchboard with new audiences.

Aimee Helie, Assistant Headteacher, Co-op Academy Delius

Aimee Helie is the Senior Assistant Headteacher at Co-op Academy Delius, where she works closely with children with a wide range of additional needs, as well as their families. Passionate about inclusion, kindness and ambition, Aimee believes that every child deserves to be understood, valued and truly celebrated for who they are. Drawing on her experience across several special schools, she has developed creative and accessible approaches to help all pupils explore important topics in meaningful, engaging ways.

Ruth Ibegbuna, Northern Soul

Ruth is the founder of the multi award-winning youth leadership charity RECLAIM and The Roots Programme, a radical new approach to bridging divides between UK communities. Now added to the list is Northern Soul. Founded by Ruth, the organisation is proud to be based in Manchester, made up of a small values-led team from across the country, with a mission to amplify a more powerful Northern voice and presence in the UK.

northernsoul.xyz

Nahida Nazir, Primary Advisory Teacher, The Linking Network

Mahmood Mohammed, Stronger Communities Lead, Bradford Council

Penguin panel

Mariam Ansar, Teacher of English, Dixons Sixth Form Academy

Mariam Ansar is a Bradford-born writer and English teacher. A graduate of the University of Cambridge, her feature writing has been featured in NME, gal-dem, VICE, Dazed, Catapult, Rookie Magazine, Teen Vogue, Elite Daily and many others. Her debut novel – Good For Nothing – was published with Penguin Random House in 2023.

mariamansar.com

Sabah Khaliq, Leader of Whole School Literacy, Carlton Bolling

I am the Literacy Lead at Carlton Bolling in Bradford, transforming literacy outcomes in a highly disadvantaged community through research-driven, high-impact strategies. Over the past year, we’ve reduced functional illiteracy by 40% and improved the 16+ reading rate by 96% from September to July. Our work has been featured by ITV Calendar, and I’ve delivered CPD for PiXL Edge on vocabulary instruction. Currently completing the NPQLL, I am focused on scaling our impact — in school and across Bradford — with a clear mission: changing life chances through literacy.

Mehwash Kauser, English Teacher, Belle Vue Girls Academy

Mehwash Kauser is a teacher of English, and Lead Teacher of Creating Confident Future Citizens at Belle Vue Girls’ Academy. Her role involves the creation of Belle Vue Girls’ Alumni to ensure student ambition and aspiration is synthesised with real-life, relatable role models to cultivate a sense of belonging through representation. She has taught across Yorkshire, beginning her career in York and Leeds before choosing Bradford as her teacher home. She is a passionate ‘Bradvocate’ and believes teaching is the best job in the world, and one of the most important ways in which we can create a confident, empowered and clever society filled with people who are compassionate and kind.

Youth Voice

Jonathan Kennedy, BDAT, Youth Voice

Emily Kecic, Youth, Skills and Training Manager, Bradford 2025

Malachi Swen , Youth Panel / BDAT Board Member, Youth Panel/BDAT Board

Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces

Kate Hart, Project Coordinator, Bradford Schools of Sanctuary

Faraha , Bradford Schools of Sanctuary

Lily MacTaggart, Education Consultant

Lily is a primary school teacher with experience of working in multicultural mainstream and SEND schools in Manchester, Leeds and Bradford. She has worked on several of the learning packs across the Local Histories for Learners project. Lily is also a playworker specialising in using play to support refugee children, and also works in refugee human rights policy.

Keynotes

Naomi Lord

Naomi Lord is an educator and artist whose work bridges creative learning, youth leadership and social change. She develops cross-sector projects connecting schools, communities and cultural partners to reimagine how creativity shapes belonging, wellbeing and collective action. Her practice centres youth agency in place, supporting young people to design change within their own communities. Working across the UK and internationally, Naomi’s research contributes to the growing field of creative health and to policy innovation in education and placemaking. She champions the cultivation of creative dispositions as the foundations of creative education and civic renewal.

Susan Pitter, Director, Out of Many People

Susan is a cultural heritage producer whose work engages the power of authentic, compelling storytelling, and centres narratives and culture of marginalised communities, particularly the Black British and diasporic experience and culture. In 2019 she curated the Eulogy exhibition on first-generation Jamaicans who settled in Leeds in the 1940s to 60s, which is still the most visited exhibition in Leeds Central Library’s 130+ year history. In 2022-23, she directed the Jamaica Society Leeds Out of Many Festival, as well as curating the Rebellion to Romance exhibition which explored the stories of second-generation West Indians in 1970s and 80s Leeds, and For King, Country & Home exploring the lives of the city’s West Indian WW2 RAF service men.  If she had to choose a mantra that reflects her work and passions, it might be “No one can tell our stories like we can. No one will.”

Briony Thomas, Professor of Applied Creativity, University of Leeds

Briony Thomas is Professor of Applied Creativity at the University of Leeds and Chair of Leeds33 Cultural Education Partnership. Briony is passionate about diversity and inclusion, and the transformative power of creative education. She acts as Deputy Director of Leeds Institute for Societal Futures, specialising in collaborative arts-science initiatives with schools and communities. Many of her projects have focused on integrating arts across the curriculum – both inside and outside of formal learning spaces – and making science and technology accessible to all.