My day at Tower Hamlets with No Turning Back 2020

When I was first looking at getting into PR I spoke to a lot of people about the industry, in the hopes that I’d glean some information to help secure me a job where I no longer had to ask people if they wanted a receipt. One of the conversations that really stuck with me was with a girl I met on a Facebook group who very directly told me that PR was a predominantly white industry with little to no representation and that it would be a struggle for me to get a job, let alone build a career.

Whilst she wasn’t entirely wrong - the CIPR’s latest PR Population Report found that 87% of PR practitioners are of a white ethnic background - I felt discouraged at the thought of constant microaggressions and having to fight an uphill battle to be heard.

Luckily, I found Teamspirit who have been nothing but encouraging and supportive of my career, which is why when I was asked if I wanted to join the No Turning Back programme as an ambassador, I was keen to take part.

Essentially, the programme focuses on supporting diversity in the industry as well as going into schools, colleges and universities to talk to students about the marketing and comms industry. As part of my first foray into the initiative, I got to join a group of three other PRs at East London mosque to chat with four classes across the Tower Hamlets borough about PR and our respective journeys, as well as answer any questions.

The day was a learning curve for both the children and ourselves. It became abundantly clear after the first talk that PR wasn’t something familiar to the kids, which to be fair to them, wasn’t a career I was aware of either at their age. But it did prompt some questions and discussion around what PR entailed and how it linked into things like marketing and advertising which we carried into further talks. We quickly learnt that the kids also responded better when we name-dropped who we’d worked with, or talked about some of the events we’d organised so we made a point to bring that up too.

After our second panel talk a group of 16 year olds approached us to ask things like how much we earned, what we did for our A Levels, and what we did to make our applications stand out. They were the most engaged group by far and cemented themselves quickly as a highlight of the day. It can be difficult to connect with kids, especially on a subject like careers which must feel a million miles away from where they are, so being able to have at least one conversation with them felt like a huge win for us.

It’s also worth pointing out that the day was a triumph for the organisation. It took the team at No Turning Back a whole two years of back and forth with the Tower Hamlets council before they were able to make the event happen!

I was beyond surprised to find this out but it was so inspirational listening to Sarah, the Business Lead at the organisation, talk about the constant correspondence and level of planning that went into creating the day. It made me realise just how much went into the day and how lucky I was to be a part of it.