Two of our voluntary staff networks, Proud Crick and PRISM (the Crick’s race equity network) joined forces on Sunday 11 August to celebrate UK Black Pride. This fantastic event, the world's largest for LGBTQIA+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American and Middle Eastern descent, took place at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London.

It was a gloriously sunny day and the vibe was fun and empowering. It was an opportunity to come together as a community for a joyful, vibrant party with an exciting lineup of performances, talks, community stalls and workshops. 

We enjoyed engaging with members of the public at our Crick stall, many of whom were drawn to our colourful background banner showing the chemical filled shelves of a real Crick lab. We had some very interesting questions and people were enthusiastic about visiting our public exhibition, "Hello Brain!". Young and old science fans had a look down our pocket microscopes and took turns at guessing which animal our strawberry-sized demo brain belonged to (crocodile).  

Later on we browsed the other stalls and picked up gifts including sherbet 'Love Hearts' (which took me back to my childhood) and paper fans which were in high demand. We loved seeing so many of our Crick staff, both past and present, who popped by to say hello. 

It was a brilliant day out; so unifying, heartwarming and inclusive and a much needed respite from all the recent race-related tensions and volatility. 

Finally, a huge thank you to our amazing Crick volunteers who gave their time so generously to make the day a success: Steven Lim (Proud Crick co-chair), Bishara Marzook, Tapoka Mkandawire, Alison Dibbs, Karen Ambrose and Debipriya Das (PRISM co-chairs). 

Article orginally posted on CrickNet by Debipriya Das