Profile

The Institute of Black Culture, Media and Sport Community Interest Company, was set up in 2007, by Claudine Boothe, Film maker and Activist; and Devon Thomas, Businessman and Activist to: protect, preserve and promote the presence of black people living and working in United Kingdom, by providing the following activities:-

  1. Education/training: supplementary schools, apprenticeships, short courses, learning packs; and pilgrimages to significant sites, monuments, events and museums; (see olmsss).
  2. Culture: festivals, exhibitions and performance art events.
  3. Media:film and other audio-visual materials and journals.
  4. Sports:development and delivery of sport projects; (see sport4life).
  5. Health campaigns:Diabetes, heart and cancer awareness campaigns; (see diabetestap).
  6. Workshops: See Black Lives Are Precious workshops

Funders: The institute has been funded by Big Lottery Awards for All, The Learning Trust, The British Council and by the Heritage Lottery Fund to create distinctive and original work.

The Institute of Black Culture, Media and Sport’s primary aims are to: protect, preserve and promote the presence and interests of Black people domiciled in the United Kingdom; using education/training, cultural activities, media, health campaigns and pilgrimages. In order to achieve these objectives, IBCM&S partners with Black Community and Voluntary Sectors, museums, sports and educational organisations to bring you films, learning schemes, sport activities, health campaigns and supplementary schools.

The Institute was primarily founded to promote knowledge that the World was created by Africa/ns in three stages, namely that: Africa/ns peopled the world; Africa/ns invented civilization based on: agriculture, architecture, medicine, language, writing, science/technology, law, government, statecraft, religion, economics, sport, mobility (e.g. wheel, boat and oar); and Africans created and sustained culture in all its richness and varied forms. Therefore, the history of Africa, is the history of humanity; and of the world.

Furthermore, all civilisations ever created, including Western and Islamic Civilisations, have been inspired, financed and/or built by Africa /ns.  

The Institute of Black Culture, Media and Sport (IBCM&S) combines the work of five organisations founded between 1984 and ’97 by Claudine Boothe. These are: Social Film Productions, Community Cable and Satellite Company, Independent Media Training Trust, and Black Media Institute—all now defunct; but served their purpose by laying the foundation for IBCM&S. These ‘trail blazing’ companies and organisations, played a vital role in Britain’s Black Community’s ‘struggle’ over forty years. They have helped shaped British media by challenging stereotypes; campaigning against exclusion; and by providing media training and employment for Black people.

Founder Claudine Boothe began her working life at the Jamaica Daily Gleaner (in Jamaica), where she trained as a journalist, before leaving for the United Kingdom in ’79, to attend London International Film School. Since then, she has worked for BBC Bush House Caribbean Magazine Programme; BBC Radio Four, and Diverse Production—a Channel Four current affairs production company, where she made several hours of broadcast television. Later she joined the Independent Film Movement of the ‘80s and early ‘90s and made two documentaries including: “Skin ‘N Coal”—a Channel Four documentary about Black mineworkers who participated in the 1984 Miners’ Strike. She then made ‘Lessons From Nairobi’—an independent documentary feature film, about International Women’s Year celebrations, held in Nairobi Kenya in 1986. Also among her film credits, is a short feature film titled: “No virginity, No Nationality”- about the virginity tests carried out by the Home Office on immigrant Indian girls and women, at Heathrow Airport in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The film received critical acclaim.

Ms Boothe founded IBCM&S in 2007, to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of trans- Atlantic Slave Trade, in 1807; and to continue the ‘activism’ of the aforementioned companies she founded to help transform Britain into a better place for Black people to live and work.

  • Claudine Boothe 
  • Charmaine Simpson.
  • Professor Kevin Hylton.

Funders: The Institute is funded by Big Lottery Awards for All, Heritage Lottery Fund and by Sport England, to solve problems created by racism, inequality and victimisation.