Including Others Essay Competition Awards: University of Essex Students Narrate Minority Experience

Join us on Thursday 19 May, from 6.00pm-7.00pm for our virtual essay competition awards, with exclusive previews of student narratives.

The Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex is developing an outreach programme for secondary schools titled: Including Others: A Rights Based Schools Outreach Pilot Programme for Secondary Schools in Essex. The programme for year 11 students (15-16 year-olds) covers several themes: women’s rights, the rights of people with disabilities, LGBTQ rights, and rights-based approaches to combating racism. In March we launched an essay competition, giving University of Essex students the opportunity be involved in the programme by sharing their experiences through counter-story narration. Counter-stories are used to challenge majoritarian stories, stereotypes and/or assumptions.  
 
We had a strong field of entries representing stories that are not often heard, and we would like to thank all students who submitted narratives for this competition. It was a difficult decision, but we settled on four stories to incorporate into our schools outreach programme that shed light on asymmetrical gender relations, racism, LGBTQ experience and people with disabilities.   

Speakers

• Louise Millescamps, ‘Not All Men, But Almost All Women.’ 
• Grace Stone, ‘You Don’t Seem Autistic.’  
• Phoenix Chilvers, ‘Life in 2021 Britain as a Trans Non-Binary Person.’ 
• Priya Bhatt, ‘Pick Me.’