EKC Sheppey College holds Pride Fair

This year’s Pride Fair has taken place at EKC Sheppey College, helping our students to celebrate and learn all about Pride, including LGBTQIA+ history and inspirational people. 

Our student community felt they wanted to acknowledge and celebrate pride month at Sheppey College with a truly spectacular event. Due to this, Amelia Tindall, our Student Union President, has been leading the organisation of our Pride Fair with help from a range of people across all our departments. This included those who take part in our LGBTQIA+ club “beyou”, which is supported by the charity Porchlight. This event was extra-special for Amelia, as it is her last student experience event in the role, after working incredibly hard since being elected and taking on the role in September.

Everyone involved has been hard at work on this over the past few weeks, thinking about what they would like to see represented. Taking place throughout the fair were stalls of LGBTQ+ merchandise, in which you could collect pin badges, pens and flags, all with LGBTQIA+ flag designs. Pamphlets and information about inspirational people and popular musicians who have supported charities like Porchlight were also created and given out by our Student Union.

To add to this event, we had live music performances during the fair, including one from a student who studies at another EKC Group campus. Music student Jazmin Cloke, who studies Music at Canterbury College sung hits including ‘When I Was Your Man’ by Bruno Mars and ‘Use Somebody’ by Kings of Leon. It was great for our Student Union to open this event up to our other Colleges, allowing their students to show their skills and wow their peers. Real meaning was given to the event in an activity where students were asked to share what pride means to them, so these could be displayed for all to see. They have certainly come up with an amazing event this year, which we hope will continue to be bigger over the next few years. 

Amelia and her team have also been working hard to make changes they wanted in College going forward. Due to their work, we now have a wider selection of handpicked LGBTQIA+ books in our library for students to borrow. 

Pasha Hughes, Student Experience Officer here at Sheppey College said: “Real thought was put into this event from beginning to end – Amelia and her peers wanted to include as many people as possible. We hope that this event will further strengthen bonds between our students, encourage those who would like to attend the beyou club to do so, and to be truly proud of who they are. Sheppey College has a truly diverse range of students, who are all proud and supportive of their peers.” 

We are proud to be an inclusive College, and it is events like this which really help our students be themselves and grow during their time here. Pasha supports the Student Union as they put on excellent activities, events and trips, which really make a difference to our students.