Windrush Awards joy for Dr Michelle Bartholomew
Dr Michelle Bartholomew has been recognised for nearly two decades of pioneering work in empowering young people from the local African Caribbean community through education with two prestigious awards.
She won the African Caribbean Achievement Project (ACAP) Windrush Award 2021 ‘Professional Achievement Award’ for the Huddersfield area and then went on to achieve further success with the ACAP Windrush Award 2021 ‘Professional Achievement Award’ for West Yorkshire.
Established in 1995, ACAP is a charitable organisation that aims to improve educational welfare and outcomes for disadvantaged individuals and communities in West Yorkshire. Michelle, Course Leader for the Master of Public Health at the University, has led on innovative projects including summer schools and more recently on assessing the impact of COVID-19 on older women from the African Caribbean community.
“I am thrilled and honoured to have been recognised by ACAP,” says Michelle. “They do so much to help and support young people in our area, as they often feel they are left out of large parts of society.”
One of Michelle’s earliest initiatives was to devise summer schools hosted by the University that invited school-age students from Huddersfield and nearby for an insight into what university life had to offer. She secured £100,000 in funding from the European Social Fund and launched the first summer school in 2005.
Summer schools give taste of university life
“We focused on students who had predicted low GCSE grades from the African Caribbean and shared heritage communities. Quite often their families would never have anyone that had been to university, so they had no familial role models to follow.
“The University seemed to be ‘that building in the centre of town.’ It was somewhere that they never went to, some parents even called me to ask what they should wear when they came with their children for a parents’ information evening. It felt like a place that was not for them or their children.
“Therefore, it was fantastic that we got so many parents to come along and we were able to dispel many of the myths associated with university. They wanted to know what the benefits would be for their children, as a lot had gone straight into work after leaving school – shouldn’t their children do the same?
“The children went to lectures and seminars and worked with our lab facilities. They stayed over in university accommodation and were mentored by fellow university students who themselves came from African Caribbean and Shared Heritage backgrounds.
“As a result, we even had some parents studying at the university! We were lucky to get Kriss Akabusi to attend the final presentation evening and the programme ended as a real eye-opener on the benefits of going to university and helped many people make informed decisions.”
Tackling health inequalities for older African Caribbean women
That first summer school in 2005 was followed by more in the following two years, helping Michelle win the Yorkshire Woman of Achievement awards - Education. In 2013 she organised the ‘Voices from the African Caribbean Diaspora’ conference, following on from research that she conducted for her PhD, when she interviewed older African-Caribbean migrant women about their health experiences.
“My lecture was called ‘I don’t want fish & chips, I want soul food’, a reflection on how food connects to the homeland and cultural beliefs of older African Caribbean migrant women. I’ve continued working and researching issues affecting this group, particularly in light of COVID-19”.
“I’ve been looking at structural and material inequalities for African Caribbean women and the impact of the pandemic. We are looking at what we can learn and what changes need to be made. The pandemic has not necessarily created more inequalities, it has just highlighted what is there and made them more visible. This research is important because changes need to be made and Covid-19 is not going away.”
Michelle has also been published in the International Journal of Aging and Society with ‘Older International Migrant Women’s Reflexive Engagement with Religion’ in 2016, and in 2019 she contributed to the book 'Every Tribe’, highlighting race and diversity within the Christian Church.