Daud’s story

Daud took part in the Grit Black Leaders workshop at Nottingham Trent University.

It wasn’t until I’d done the Grit programme that I realised how much I’d been longing to belong. Sure, I had connected with other students but that was only on the basis of being at the same institution. It was all very one dimensional. After Grit I was seeing things in three dimensions.

As the only black person on my course I’d always felt like the spokesperson for the entire black community – like it was some monolith.  To say that it feels like a burden would be an understatement. 

I’d always be finding ways to make my opinions more palatable. For instance, in a seminar about Malcolm X, I softened my support for him for fear of being labelled 'radical,' a term which does not fit who I am.

Grit was so liberating. It was such a huge release to be speaking thoughts and ideas that I’d been suppressing since school - sharing my story with no filter; genuinely empowered to be completely honest with myself and with everyone else in the room.

That’s what was so amazing about Grit – sharing a space and connecting with other black students as individuals. Individuals who share a common experience but who are also different from each other in so many ways. It was an exclusive space to be comfortable and be yourself fully, and get into the conversations you always wanted to have.

It was intense. It was like we were uprooting our own experiences, tugging our own core, understanding what has made us, the experiences that have formed us, the resilience that has got us through.

I realised the value of my own upbringing, my heritage, my culture. I realised it is not something to be left behind or discarded. I’ve got new ways of thinking about myself. I’ve got this inner strength from the programme. It’s made me feel like I’m finally claiming my identity. It has made me feel whole.

And in the middle of the pandemic the energy of the programme, the sense of community I felt, enabled me to cut through the isolation, even though it was all online. I’ve now got a network of black friends I can be authentic with in a way I just can’t with my white friends.

It changed my life. I wouldn’t be doing the dissertation I am now if it wasn’t for the programme.  I’m in action in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible before: I’ve got a paid role supporting this years’ programme and I’ve been a student rep on an interview panel for a staff post at the university. I’ve realised that I matter. That as a black student my input, my opinion, my experience counts. So I’ve got a plan to play an even bigger role in the university.

You know, someone questioning our origins can be so loaded with microaggressions. A week or so before the programme, a student asked me where I was from. When I had explained I was from Somaliland, they were taken by surprise. They insisted I was “not like the others.”

Grit asked me where I came from and Grit cared to know.