Young BME Humans of Scotland
In honour of Black History Month we wanted to share the stories of young BME people in Scotland. They tell of their hopes and aspirations for the future.
These stories were collated by Lamaya, a young person working to complete her Participative Democracy Certificate. Inspired by the blog ‘Humans of New York’ she worked hard to find young people, tell their stories and take the beautiful portraits you see below.
Lamaya
I love music and going to concerts, the first concert I ever went to was Usher in the SEC and I remember walking through the ‘Smartie Tube’ tunnel for the first time. I’ve since attended so many live events at the SEC, Armadillo and Hydro over the years. Theres a special feeling walking through after a concert is finished with all other fans because everyone usually sings. As an aspiring musician myself, I hope that one day I can have a sell out concert at the Hydro and to walk through this tunnel on the way to my own concert would be a dream come true. I’ve just finished recording a three track demo which I got funding for from Creative Scotland, and have a few small gigs lined up towards the end of the year which I am looking forward to.
Jada
I create digital and traditional art in an anime cartoon style. I get commissions, people will pay me to draw their character or ask me to draw basically anything. I’ve also been I have been working on a comic book with Full Colour Magazine which is a years mentorship program, that was put in place because the comic world doesn’t have a lot of black and minority ethnic people. Through that, I’ve made a 6 page fantasy style comic that’s about this guy and girl who are best friends and they went on an adventure to find this silver marbled dragon egg that has powers of friendship. I really enjoy character creation and I think it would be animation that I would like to go in to.
Dion
My dream job is to hopefully become a pilot or captain for a commercial airline, its been on my mind for ages for as far as I can remember. Towards the end of school I was looking for a job to help me to pay for my car and stupidly overpriced insurance, and I remembered Menzies Aviation – as a child my grandparents would always take me and my sister away every year, and I remembered the companies within the airport like Swissport and Menzies Aviation and thought why not look there, so I put in an application with Menzies Aviation in Mid April and by the time my exams were over I basically went from being in school one day to working in an airport. I had no time at all in between it was really quick and I had to still do exams while I was in my work training.
Faith
I’ve always been interested in make up from a young age and felt that college would be the best place for me to help gain the skills I needed to be able to do this as a career in the future. I hope that at the end of my studies I will have gained the practical skills and knowledge to either seek self employment in the beauty industry and become a make up artist in a make up studio or continue another year at college.