Rosa Parks Symposium

Councillor Mullaney was born at St Luke’s hospital in Bradford.  She was educated at Rhodesway School and, later, at Shipley College where she attained a diploma in Early Years Education and in Management.

She became an elected Member of Council in 2016, representing the Thornton and Allerton Ward.

Councillor Mullaney has worked in her community for over forty years, starting her career as a volunteer at Barnardos and she has sat on several boards – Bradford Regeneration, Ley Top Family Centre, Café West, Lower Grange and Saffron Dean Community Association – to name a few.

Councillor Mullaney established CHILDSPLAY Neighbourhood Nursery in 1997 and a Youth Group – Dreamcatchers – in 2020.  She still supports parents’ groups and training for over 700 young people in Early Years and Child Care, helping them to achieve their goals.

Councillor Beverley Mullaney is married to Tom Mullaney and has five children and ten grandchildren.

She enjoys being an Early Years practitioner and pioneer, having visited Early Years settings in many countries including Finland, Australia and America and has acted as a mentor to help others improve quality within their settings.

Councillor Mullaney enjoys travel and socialising with family and friends.

Furqan Naeem MBE is a campaigner and community organiser with a passion to bring communities together to stand up for social injustice. 

He was the founding organiser of Greater Manchester Citizens - a chapter of the national organisation Citizens UK. He has previously worked in campaigns for Friends of the Earth, Stronger In on the EU referendum and for Sadiq Khan on the historic Mayoral campaign in 2016. 

Furqan currently works as a Community Organiser for the Living Wage Foundation organising communities to tackle low pay and is a trustee of Young Manchester and Manchester Central Foodbank. 

He was recognised for his work and was awarded an MBE for services to Interfaith Relations and to the community in Greater Manchester in the 2024 Kings birthday honours list. 

"Shirley’s priority is to engender a vibrant culture for staff and students reinforcing the University’s commitment to excellence in teaching & learning, research, knowledge exchange and equality, diversity and inclusion.

Having lived and worked in the Bradford City Region for ten years she is committed to positioning the University at the centre of the region’s social and economic regeneration."

Shirley is responsible for the leadership and management of the University of Bradford, leading the development of its values and strategy.  Shirley is the eighth Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bradford and is the first woman to hold the role.  Shirley has significant experience of working in higher education championing the quality of the student experience, widening participation, engagement with business and communities and advancing the quality of research and innovation.

Read more here.

Oyedotun Oyesomi is a Nigerian-born visual artist and product marketing expert and graduate with a Master’s degree in Digital and Strategic Marketing from the University of Bradford, class of 2023. 

Since 2016, Oyedotun has explored the power of art as a tool for inclusion, community building, and personal transformation. Working across 2D and 3D media using charcoal and acrylic paints, he creates compelling works that reflect diverse cultural narratives. 

Beyond his artistic practice, Oyedotun is deeply committed to empowering young creatives. Through his annual empowerment programmes, he has trained and mentored over 58 young artists across Nigeria and the United Kingdom, fostering confidence and skill among adolescents aged 11–18. 

Since moving to the UK, Oyedotun has collaborated on exhibitions and creative initiatives that connect students, local communities, and the wider cultural sector. His passion lies in using creativity to drive social change, inspire dialogue, and deepen cultural appreciation. 

Oyedotun brings a wealth of experience in leveraging the transformative power of the creative sector to promote inclusion and build bridges across communities.

Uduak Archibong PhD MBE is the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion). She directs the Centre for Inclusion and Diversity (CfID) and provides strategic oversight for equality, diversity and inclusion [EDI] across the institution. She is a Fellow of the West African College of Nursing and a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing. She was listed in the New Year Honours list 2015 and was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her contributions to higher education and equality.

Recognised as a foremost authority with a sustained, distinguished presence in the field of diversity management, she is currently leading in setting agenda to drive research, learning and knowledge exchange activities internationally. She has published extensively on inclusion and diversity, informed by over 30 years experience of working in the health and higher education sectors. Her academic and professional work has major impacts locally, nationally and globally. Key among these impacts is that the body of her research work has provided the evidence base for, and a robust understanding of, the development and application of cultural solutions and diversity interventions in public, private and third sector organisations.

Bradford-born Ian Beesley has been documenting his home city and the north of England for over 45 years. His early work in the late-1970s captured the everyday lives of working- class people: kids playing street games, fans chanting for Bradford City FC, and grafters employed in vast Victorian factories. In the 1980s, he proceeded to document the demise of heavy industries, such as mining, iron and steel production. More recently he has concentrated on health and social issues   including fuel poverty, environmental pollution and the representation of dementia.

He is currently artist in residence for the Bradford Institute for Health Research.

His career retrospective exhibition “Life goes on” is currently on display at Salts Mill, Saltaire.

Liz Mytton is a Bradford-born writer, coach and facilitator. After a long career in community development, Liz took part in the 2014 Critical Mass writing programme at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, and became a Bristol Old Vic Open Session writer in 2018. She co-wrote Like There’s No Tomorrow, a National Theatre Connections commission in 2020 and is committed to coaching the next generation of theatre makers. Her other work includes Red Snapper (2016), Back Home (2017), Southside Stories (2019), The Festival of Lost and Found (2019) for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and An Emperor in the West (2020) about the exile of Haile Selassie. Liz is currently working on a Ghanaian inspired performance to be showcased as part of the Bradford 2025 programme. 

Liz leads Theatre in Flow, a creative organisation committed to the championing of marginalised voices, and is a mentor and trainer supporting artists and leaders in the cultural and voluntary sector.

Dr Seán Henry is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Edge Hill University, where he co-leads the BA Education Studies joint honours programme. Seán's research has explored questions related to religion, gender, sexuality, and education. More recently, his research interests have focused on the role comedy can play in enabling conversations about LGBTQ+ experiences in educational settings. 

Lisa Holmes has been a commercial photographer for over 20 years, and a lecturer in photography for 10 years. She is a fine art and portrait photographer. Lisa is also the Founder of Photo Hub North CIC, Social Enterprise of the Year 2022 and runner-up for 2024, a not-for-profit, driven by a belief that everyone should have access to photography, and the opportunity to express themselves. The Photo Hub engages with the local community through photography workshops. public projects and by providing both analog and digital photography facilities.  At the heart of Photo Hub North CIC is the desire to teach and promote sustainable photography. It has become a leader in the research and development of environmentally friendly photography techniques and runs the only eco-darkroom in the country.

Mahmood or Mebs, as he is known through his profession, was born in a rural village in Pakistan, believed to be in the 1950s, Exact date cannot be confirmed as even on his birth certificate it born ‘about 1956.’

Aged nine, along with his mother, he came to England in 1965 to join his father, who had settled in Oxford three years previously. In 1967 the family moved to Bradford, West Yorkshire, due to his aunt being diagnosed with cancer. Mebs did most of his schooling in Bradford, having attended Birley Church Junior, Frizinghall Junior High and Belle Vue Boys Grammar.

In 1973, with the cotton mills beginning to close in Yorkshire, the family moved to the other side of the Pennines, to Blackburn, Lancashire.

Mebs finished his school at Witton Park Secondary Modern, as it was known then. Unfortunately, he did not excel at school. His ability to learn crippled by his fear of making mistakes and hampered with his shy and timid personality.

With his prospects of a career limited he drifted into mundane jobs, until a chance meeting that woke something inside him and inspired him to seek a career he destined for.

In 1989 he joined Lancashire Constabulary as a probationary officer, and never looked back. Ten years later he found his true vocation, the Constabulary asked him to lead on a piece of work to address the under-representation of Black and Minority Ethnic communities within their workforce. This piece of work led to local and national recognition for both Lancashire Constabulary and Mebs, culminating in a reception with the then PM Gordon Brown at Downing Street for Mebs.

In 2003 he was elected as the Chair of the Lancashire Black Police Association. As the chair, Mebs was in an ideal position to raise awareness and understanding of the challenges the minority ethnic staff faced within the police service and to be the voice for those unable to speak for themselves.

Mebs retired as a police officer in 2013, he has continued to provide mentoring for young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. From 2017 to 2018 he worked for Staffordshire Police as their EDI lead, before stepping away from full time work.  

During the covid pandemic Mebs turned to writing. In 2022 his first book, ‘PC Mebs – Finding Myself’ was published. He is currently working on two fictional books and a book of short stories.

Ned Lunn is the Canon for Intercultural Mission and the Arts at Bradford Cathedral, where he combines his deep experience in the arts with his commitment to intercultural ministry. Formerly a theatre director, producer, and venue manager, Ned now writes and speaks on the intersections of spirituality, arts, and community. His recent work supports Bradford's City of Culture 2025, focusing on how creative expression fosters inclusion, identity, and social cohesion. A passionate advocate for cultural unity, Ned explores the arts as transformative tools for bridging divides and strengthening community bonds.

Maxine Hamilton-Bell is a lecturer in Social Work at the University of Salford, UK.  She has won the prestigious national Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) by Advance HE 2024 for her collective role in providing a vital source of support for minoritised ethnic students encountering race-related challenges at university (including professional practice placements). She is currently involved in a research project that aims to connect communities of women through comedy to challenge negative stereotypes, stigma, and discrimination through an accessible and less threatening platform of comedy.

Dr Marie Caslin is a Senior Lecturer in Inclusive Education based within the Faculty of Education at Edge Hill University. She is passionate about addressing the inequalities that are encountered by disabled children and young people. Over the last few years, she has been working in partnership with The Comedy Trust on the Comedy for Social Change research project to explore how groups who experience discrimination, stigma and oppression can use humour as a powerful tool to tackle social issues.