¶ Empowering Change Through Diversity and Inclusion
The Northern Power Women podcast for your career and your life , no matter what business you're in . Hello , hello and welcome to the Northern Power Women podcast .
My name is Simone and this is the path to power season , and every week I am talking to some of the most amazing changemakers and trailblazers who are really making a difference in and from their communities by challenging the norm and creating the more inclusive cultures that we all know are so critical to accelerate gender equality from the north .
And there's so much to learn . From every single one of my guests I get all of the inspiration , I get all of the top tips and I feel like it is just a personal one to one coaching session for me often , but I love it . I love having these chats , and this week is no different .
I'm delighted to introduce to you Rebecca Loys , the Diversity and Inclusion Partner at National Museums Liverpool . Rebecca , welcome to the podcast .
Hello , thank you so much for having me , simone . It's such an honour to be here .
And you know it was great to see you at the celebration event a few weeks ago , great to get people in a room . You know we were chatting , you know the conversations that we have sometimes before we press record . I think was really interesting and to get people together .
You know , I know COVID , the pandemic lockdown , as we're always three years ago , but you talk about , you know a lot of what you do . You love bringing people together through the events , through the hospitality events , your hospitality business . Tell us just about National Museums Liverpool , because there's tons of them .
Yeah , so National Museums Liverpool has seven sites actually , so they've all got their own separate names . So you might not recognise the National Museums Liverpool tag , but it's the International Slavery Museum , the Maritime Museum , the Museum of Liverpool . We also have the Wales Museum , the Walker Art Gallery , lady Leigh , but Art Gallery , and Suddly House .
So there are seven sites . So the majority of them are in the city centre , sort of the waterfront , which you know . Just I'm so lucky , I get to work in great locations , yeah , and then of course , lady Leigh , but across the water , and Suddly House fair in the south of .
Liverpool . They've not been to those last two . So there you go . That'll be on my list now for my summer , my summer in the city and across . So . But I know you have this massive passion to empower people and you know to believe in achieve their potential . Where did that come from , gosh ? Oh ?
I feel like I sort of grew up with it Right . I suppose it's from your own internal journey and your own internal struggles and what you want to overcome within yourself . You can recognise it so much more easily in others when you see it in yourself , I suppose .
And so when you're able to , when you've had someone come along and empower you and that's sort of , you know , lit your path and enabled you to kind of accelerate and push on , you want to do the same for others when you see them at the same milestones that you saw yourself at , and so I think that's where it came from .
For me , my mum is just an incredible woman and a really encouraging character to me as well . She's completely blind , visually impaired , and has been since she was 17 . My dad is also and , yeah , they met at a school for the blind . Very cute story .
But for them to see both of them live their life having to overcome struggles and have them to , you know a lot of the time navigate the barriers that people had or you know the perceptions that people had of them and say that they are not over people's perception and that they can do more than people believe them to do , and to see them both walk that
journey , I suppose also as a massive motivator for me .
Absolutely do not underestimate . I think sometimes people like to , you know , put labels on and assume , make assumptions , and you know you talked about power . Then you know we talk about this being our pathway to power and use your power for good , and I know you're very much against when you like to do things on purpose and with real purpose and how .
How does having that purpose in in what you do affect the way that you approach your career , and actually not just your career , everything else that you're involved with ?
Yeah , I think when you believe in a specific goal , it can really take you somewhere , and especially when you find people . I think it's so incredible when you're surrounded by good people who cheerlead you on in your goals and perhaps will join you for the journey . So , for example , the charity worker I do .
I fully believe that the disease sickle cell I believe I can see that in this lifetime become a curable disease . There's been one or two cases where it's being cured , but they just need more money and awareness around it , and it's actually the largest genetic disease in the UK .
And so what I found is that I had this vision of I'm going to start some events and I'm going to raise money through live music events and people kind of join me in that journey and you know they believe authenticity .
You know , and when you're coming from that place of authenticity , hope , and you really know that there's something about that papers and that you can achieve something , people can believe in that and join you and join you in that and are willing to travel along that road of you .
And this is personal to you , isn't it ? Because you sadly lost your sister . I can't imagine how you must do that . What age was she when you lost her ?
She was 35 , so the age I am now she's just mind boggling . It's a crazy story as well , because she's born with sickle cell disease , which is a genetic disease , and there's different variants of it . You can have like be a carrier , be minor , or you can have like full blown .
So she had full blown and she'd managed it all her life and I probably I probably would say that I didn't realise how serious it was .
You know , I knew I'd seen her go to hospital and knew the pain that she suffered , but I didn't think that what would , what did happen , would happen , and it was again in Covid , where there's just , you know , the doctors are busier than usual , and she couldn't go to the specialists that she usually goes to . She'd had a fall .
It was naturally , you know that she'd had , you know , an attack of sickle cell . She'd had a fall , but she's more susceptible to blood clots because she's got sickle cell , and so it's that gap of understanding between the specialists and between the rest of workers in , you know , in our medical services .
And so she'd she'd been given blood thinners but instead of having a scan , she'd been given a second x-ray for the fall . So on the day that she was due to have a scan .
She got an x-ray and then they'd rebooked the scan from Monday and then on Sunday the blood clot went into her heart and so it was just it's difficult to take because it's kind of like the circumstances of it , but for me , the the most , the best thing I can do is take all of that energy which is , you know , it's grief , it's despair , it's you know ,
intolerable pain , and I can turn that into . You know , I can switch that despair for hope and I can switch that pain which will always be there . But you can have joy instead of just being in intolerable grief , and you can do it through making a difference for others .
And so when we're all in that room and you know I said , the events so far have been there's been two wonderful jazz events , which is just so fun you can get . You can get glammed up , wear lovely outfits and listen to beautiful music .
And there's also been another live music event which had , like , various different artists , but when everyone's in the room for a common cause but at the same time , you know you're just buying a ticket and then you'll be in entertains . You're having this wonderful evening of entertainment , but you know all of it is going to go towards making a difference .
It's just incredible .
Tell us where you can find out more information about what you're doing and your fundraising and your . Have you got a date for your next event ?
No , I think so at the moment , because it we were kind of at the start , we kind of did them sporadically , but we're looking to have one in the winter .
I would say , at the moment , just watch out for my LinkedIn and I will definitely post something on there , but I think we're going to perhaps develop it into a proper website specifically about the things that we're doing .
I think we've made that decision on myself , and then I've got my I say my partner in Thrive instead of partner in crime Hayley Kincaid , and she's an incredible musician and vocalist in her own right , and so we kind of cover each other's gaps . I'm the kind of get everyone together and what should we do ?
Let's do this , this , this , this , this , and then she's got all of that technical skill . So , yeah , we're probably going to put something properly together now at that stage .
And the power of that , bringing people together to educate , to remove that desperate despair and replace that with that hope . I think that's who you are , isn't it ?
And using that gift of , like you say , love , the fact that you cover each other the way you talked about yourself and Hayley then and bringing that music into it , and that music is so important , isn't it ? Tell me about the work that you do with the gospel choir .
Yeah , so again , that's another thing that Hayley and I do together . So we started that gosh must be eight years old now Seven , seven towards eight years old and it was just literally we just wanted something in the community , just something to bring people together , and we just thought we need something .
And again , hayley's a vocal coach and she was doing some choirs and she had a recovery choir at the time and there's unfortunately been a bit of decline in the recovery choir and I said , well , it looks like you're gonna have a space open . I think we could really get something going here .
And so we started the choir and again I was sort of doing the admin bits and Hayley was delivering the choir itself and it's just grew and grew and it's so lovely to see people who were there eight years ago still there .
So it's not that we do get new members all the time and sometimes people move on , leave the city , whatever , but we've still got this nucleus of people who've been there from the very beginning and it really has become a family and sometimes we do weddings , sometimes you'll see us at various events , and it literally is about spread and joy .
It's sort of open to anyone . It's not specifically faith-based , although there are multiple faiths who are in the choir , but it's just about bringing joy through uplifted music and it really does make a difference to everyone there and wherever we go . We absolutely love it .
And it's that transformative nature that music brings , isn't it ? So you talk about what you're doing around your fundraising for in your sister's memory , what you do around the gospel choir , that music can just . You can see it in people's eyes , can't you ?
When you see that music come to play or bringing that choir together , that motivates you on , doesn't it Absolutely ?
And it was quite interesting . I was at an event in Three Work at University College London and it was thinking about statues and how some of the statues are being pulled down around Black Lives Matter and thinking about how we remember in the UK and it was really interesting .
One of the women there was talking about , you know , the importance of creativity to social activism and actually I think it's really true that a lot of the time when we're trying to instill an important message , sometimes we might want to do it directly through particular words , a lecture , you know , a serious conversation , but actually there are so many channels to
get across important messages and I think music , it just it captures people , you know , and I think it's one of the best ways to do it .
Absolutely . It's like just literally brings people together .
¶ Volunteering in Brazil and Personal Growth
Talk to me about what led you to volunteer over in Brazil at one of the largest valours over there .
Yeah , so it was part of my PhD . Actually I'm at the very end now , I'm just waiting for my Viva but basically my PhD was it's about social activism and it's about oppression and how social activists perceive oppression , and I did half of the study in Liverpool 8th .
But one of the key people who I read and who I base the work of is an educational philosopher called Paulo Freire , and he was Brazilian and some of his writings challenged me so much that I sort of thought I'm never going to understand this without understanding his context .
And so I amazed his decision quite early on that I wanted to do research over in Brazil , and so I went over there , to you know , to carry out that research .
But yeah , what ended up happening is I just made friends who happened to be from Hacinha , which is , yeah , largest of Eleanor Rio , and yeah , we , I would just be there so often , and there was an NGO there that taught English and I had some experiences teaching English as a father language .
So I volunteered and I was I'd just be there a couple of times a week and I must say they are the most incredible places and they are , you know , it's a completely different world to ours . You'll find it's quite interesting .
Like I'm from Liverpool 8th , from Toxtif and some of the things in the Favella you'd never seen in Liverpool 8th , sort of like you know people got their own , you know you'll see all the biggest banks in the country in the Favella but at the same time you don't have proper sewerage systems and proper water systems .
So it's really kind of you know two opposite things happening at the same time and you know you'll see there's jobs that in our country you know were quite you know jobs that would have you in quite a comfortable position , sort of electricians , plumbers . They're kind of jobs that in Brazil you end up in the Favella .
So it's not necessarily kind of our perception of people in poverty , but at the same time there is absolute poverty and absolute struggle . Yeah , and I found it so friendly , so welcoming and it definitely it changed my life being over there .
What did you bring back into Liverpool 8th ? What did you bring back into Liverpool with you ?
I think I brought back a more definitely a more confident version of myself , because to go over there I had to do so many things I didn't think I could do .
I had to learn Portuguese , which is a very tough language to learn , and I think what I discovered as well about one of the things about learning the languages you know , for me , I was always quite okay at school and I kind of understood things quite quickly . But with a language there's no way to hide .
If you forget something , you just forget something , and so you'll constantly happen to make mistakes , and that was really tough for me .
So just every day walking around making mistakes and people correcting me all day long , and so , and then to sort of embrace that and sort of be okay with actually the only way to grow and develop is through embracing the fact that you go into making mistakes , and I think that's definitely something that you can bring into .
You know your career trajectory and your development path , you know , instead of making it into a big deal , just being like , okay , let's pivot , let's move forward . So definitely brought that back , gosh . So much Just , I think , a happier attitude towards life as
¶ Joy and Open Hearts in Diversity
well . Just joy . Brazilians are so joyful and you know they do have tough circumstances . It is tough , but they're sort of it's really interesting .
They will say to themselves the way that you recognize a Brazilian is the smile on the face , because they're always smiling , they're always laughing , they always sort of , yeah , it's bad , but what can we do other than laugh , you know , and they really do sense a joy , and so I think that's definitely something that I brought back as well .
Yeah , well , that's where you're . I think you just have it's that hope , isn't it ? That eternal hope , isn't it ? And positivity that I think just radiates out of you . And you know you've worked such a lot around .
You know , when you're work around your consulting in relation to diversity and inclusion , sometimes I feel we're going forward , sometimes I think we're going backwards to coming forwards . What other kind of big changes that you've seen over the last so four years or so , since you've been , you know , working across this ?
I think the biggest change is hearts that are willing to listen , and I think that's the most important thing , and I think it's actually sometimes I enter spaces where I don't necessarily if I'm giving a talk , I don't necessarily feel like I have that in the room , and so to understand that that's what I need to do , I need to first of all get to the place .
We've got hearts that are open to listen before I really get into the message of what I want to say . That's always what I aim to bring . So if I'm in a room that seems quite close , sometimes I walk into the room and people just got their arms crossed and they're very much Like defensive .
And so to sort of convey a message of you know , we're all in this together , we're all on a growth journey . We're all having to deal with , you know , be it internalized and Racism or misogyny or whatever it is there's . You know , we're under the shadow of the biggest empire that ever existed .
There's going to be inherent legacies that all of us have to kind of undo a bit . And it's not , you know , it's not about pointing fingers and saying who's wrong and who's right . It's about that collective Understanding that actually , in our heart of hearts .
The majority of us want to just be good people and get along , but the way to do that is by questioning a few things within ourselves so that we're not unconsciously causing harm to others . And so , yeah , I think the biggest thing for me is that there are more open hearts than perhaps the way about other Times .
I think as well , there's been a massive development in language . People are able to use more Language which acutely and specifically Attends to the experience they have . There's been a you know , there's so many more people writing , and so that really helps as well is that there's now these experiences that people can really name and go . That's what it is .
It was a microaggression or you know , that's what it was . It felt like this and you know these . Having that and a richer literacy around experiences for diverse and peoples is just . It really helps . It really helps to be able to convey messages to change and it's funny .
You talked about learning Portuguese and Constantly sort of repeating , constantly making mistakes . I think that's you just occurred to me , that's you know . You talked about open hearts . You talked about the language .
It's , people have used the wrong language or been fearful of using language for years because they're like , oh , I don't want to say that out loud , that's not quite right , you know , and so therefore sometimes won't say anything . So I think there's something really in that language . And finally , finally , finally , and what's next for you ?
Your PhD , volunteering , charity , gathering , music , you know , consultancy . What's next for you ? What should we look out for ?
Oh , I think and I'm really , I'm really interested , of course , you know , primarily thing is is what I'm doing at the museums and seeing growth happen in the diversity , inclusion work and the strategy there .
So I just want to plow , continue plowing efforts to create a platform of sort of you know , a foundational basis of you know , hopefully , what will be a department , you know , a full-on big department which can influence all the different sites and and that can Really just create that new culture where the language is normalized .
You know , I , I feel like diversity of inclusion needs to be like Peter . You know we think of Peter as as English as anything , but you know it's Italian , you know when it becomes that normal . So that that's what I want to do in the museums , I think . And Consultancy seems to be growing and growing , particularly with the end of my studies .
I see myself writing , I see myself writing , I see myself doing more events and and and really growing in the consultancy side of things .
And I wrote about , I wrote a lot about Representation , belonging and shame as part of my thesis and I think there's such important areas , so to build it into music practice but also to be able to write about it and get more information out there for everybody .
I think that's it's gonna be one of the next big things , yeah keep an eye on Rebecca's LinkedIn profile because this is an amazing woman who said at the start every week I'm talking to fantastic trailblazers . People are literally shifting and changing and driving the culture change . Rebecca , is been an absolute joy to have you on this week's podcast .
Thank you so much for taking the time to join us .
Oh thank you so much for having me , simone . It's been incredible .
Oh , I thank all you for listening . Isn't it
¶ Northern Power Women Podcast and Hub
amazing ? Every week , these conversations , you know , those sort of the talk about language of the day , the talk about hope , the talk about you know , sort of that open heart it's .
You know I always go away say this is these are my one-to-one personal coaching sessions , but you know I love these weekly episodes , so please do subscribe so you don't miss an episode , as we are on our pathway to power , and power for good .
If you'd like to join us on this mission of professional and personal development , please do stay connected on everything that we're doing is on our digital hub . We are powernet , and please do leave a review . Get in touch on all of our socials , at the North Power women on Twitter and northern power men on all the others . Thank you so much for joining us .
My name is Simone . This is the Northern Power women podcast . What goes on media production ?