![\"Headshot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Patrick-Daly.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe co-chairs of the network say the aim is to honor Black culture in all its forms and share an openness to all members of Northeastern\u2019s community.<\/p>\n
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One of Ubuntu: NU London\u2019s Black Network\u2019s main aims is to celebrate Black culture in all its guises, according to its co-chairs. Photo by Alyssa Stone\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n
LONDON \u2014 Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican archbishop and anti-apartheid campaigner, described a person with \u201cubuntu\u201d as being \u201copen and available to others, affirming of others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hayaat Abdi-Aynab, an academic adviser at Northeastern University, says that ethos of \u201cubuntu,\u201d a form of humanist African philosophy<\/a>, is represented in a new Black network that she and three co-chairs have established on the London campus.<\/p>\n Ubuntu: NU London\u2019s Black Network is about celebrating Black culture and is open to all staff and students, including those who are not Black, she says.<\/p>\n \u201cUbuntu is an ancient African word meaning humanity to others,\u201d says Abdi-Aynab.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is often described as reminding us that, \u2018I am what I am because of who we all are\u2019 and it is this idea of shared humanity that we wanted to portray through the name.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to make clear through the name of the network that this is not just for the Black community. It really is open to everybody to get involved, regardless of their background.\u201d<\/p>\n The official launch of the network will take place at noon, Sept. 24, in Devon House, Room 121. <\/p>\n As well as setting out the network\u2019s mission and aims, members of the Northeastern community are invited to contribute to a display that will depict the rich diversity of Black culture by bringing an item that they feel is representative. Abdi-Aynab says the object could be anything from a photo, a piece of clothing, a book, an artifact, a recipe, an artwork or anything else that holds meaning to the person.<\/p>\n She says the network\u2019s main priority will be to act as a driving force behind campus community events during the U.K.\u2019s October celebrations of Black History Month<\/a>, while also hosting events during February, when the month is marked in the U.S.<\/p>\n The co-chairs, who include the careers adviser Busayo Abidakun<\/a> and law faculty members Fayokemi Olorundami<\/a> and Balgiisa Sheik Ahmed<\/a>, also plan to provide a mentoring and professional development service as the network progresses, according to Abdi-Aynab.<\/p>\n The idea behind the group originated after a cohort of staff members came together last year to host a series of events to mark October\u2019s Black History Month, which included a West African drumming experience, film screenings and interactive zine-making.<\/p>\n There was also cross-campus collaboration, with a virtual global network conversation between London, the John D. O\u2019Bryant African American Institute based in Boston and members of the Oakland community that focused on last year\u2019s theme of \u201creclaiming narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was lovely,\u201d recalls Adbi-Aynab. \u201cEveryone got to share what reclaiming narratives meant for them and how they do that on a day-to-day basis where they work. It was very nice to hear the American perspective as well as the British voices.\u201d<\/p>\n With the network established, Adbi-Aynab says the ambition is to celebrate Black culture in all its forms.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to be open in that way and welcome everybody to come with their own definition of what Black culture is,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cBlack culture looks different in Africa than it does in America, for example, and in different parts of the world. But we can all unite in having that connection with our culture and being open in accepting different ways of looking at it. The network really wants to emphasize that.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of our aims is to celebrate Black culture, whatever it means to people, whatever it looks like to people \u2014 to just really showcase the talent and the successes of our Black community here on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The co-chairs of the network say the aim is to honor Black culture in all its forms and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[51856,53177,117465,748,393,37977,4884,257,37978,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-325561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-black-communities","9":"tag-black-history-month","10":"tag-black-people","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-faculty-and-staff-news","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-northeastern-university-london","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114988284939219019","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}