Empowering Communities of Colour across gm
& the north west
We are the 'People of Colour' mission led ‘One Stop Shop’ in Greater Manchester that can engage with Global Majority communities and support them in a unique manner due to our extensive reach and diverse membership.
Our Story
BASE X has formed to directly and actively tackle, in partnership with other like minded bodies, the spectre of institutional racism that we believe is at the root cause of the many inequalities that Communities of Colour face in Britain today.
BASE X is an infrastructure platform that collaborates with most of the Global Majority networks and communities that exist in Greater Manchester and the northwest region.
Why the X?
Well, its in honour of the great Civil rights activist: 'Malcolm X'
Our BASE X registration was also done on May 19th and that also coincides with the birth of Malcolm X that is widely celebrated around the world.
BASE X recognises the huge gap that exists between the take up of Social Investment from Communities of Colour in comparison to the rest of the population and has worked hard to to develop the beginnings of that road to change.
This year, we have also decided to focus on 'Barriers to Employment' faced by young people from certain Communities of Colour. This disparity in employment figures is not only, just down to lack of skills or aspirations from our communities. Its also, down to clear systemic racism that is hampering and keeping out young professionally educated successful young people from professions that they actually graduated for..
BASE X is involved in co-designing some pioneering culturally sensitive/acceptable employment hubs and employment grapevines with our partners that are grassroots led.
Our philosophy is very much 'Collaboration instead of Competition'.
BASE X has split from BASE INC which was led by GMCVO and this was due to fundamental differences, which in the end were untenable. These included non recognition of our 500+ members that acquired membership via our website membership button. We also did not agree that potential ACCESS funded contracts should be offered to certain named BASE INC Council Members instead of being put out to all the BASE Membership as an expression of interest. This was deemed by key lead officers to be a direct financial conflict of interest and was stated so. The final issue was that we did not feel that BASE INC had true autonomy from GMCVO as it was felt that they were still dictating who should attend ACCESS meetings from BASE instead of allowing the BASE Committee to decide that for themselves.
BASE X led by organisations/networks of colour and the Lead Officer, have now evolved into something much more of a platform for BAME networks and has become an infrastructure organisation itself.
Our unique cultural knowledge and ability to successfully engage with Global Majority 'BAME' groups and our professionalism to research these communities are our core competencies
BASE X – Board of Directors
Mohammed T Akhtar
Company Secretary
Mohammed T Akhtar, LLB LLM MCIARB an international dispute resolution solicitor. Mohamed has been devoting his time for pro bono legal work to better the BAME community.
Our Board Members
Our Board Members are seasoned, committed activists to racial justice and have each had their own journey.
They know first hand and through other third parties, what it is to face 'Systemic Racism' and what a thriving cancer it is in todays society!
BASE X Board members are vehemently against the common practice of non People of Colour led infrastructure organisations within the Public and VCSE Sectors purposefully creating 'BAME Cash Cows' in the name of People of Colour, purely with the sole intention of milking funds out of government agencies and national funders in order to exploit Communities of Colour further.
BASE X does not believe that research carried out by PoC led organisations should then only, be solely owned by
the 'non BAME led infrastructure organisations' who secured the funding by naming BAME research partners like BASE X to make their bids successful.
The research conducted should be made available to the People of Colour organisations that carried it out and they should be credited within the research document too.
The Board are elected by the wider membership of BASE X.
There is a Chief Officer that carries out the ‘day to day’ operations of the organisation who line manages Sessional Officers and then reports back to the Management Board.