Celebrating our Sisters, Saluting our Sisters & Honouring Matriarchs of Movement

Looking back over all the activities that took place during the month of October in commemoration of the Black History Month, I must say I am truly proud of the organizing committee led by Efomo Ogwu MBA, FCA TOMILOLA KAYODE- ADEDEJI MSC (PMP) (PMI-RMP) (PMI-SP) (CPIM) , Seye (Ijalaye) Mada & Otuvie Akpene for the flawless execution.

This is testament to the leadership, collaborative and caring culture each one of you embodies & exhibited to make this a success. This is assurance of leadership posterity for our great community.

From the launch of the Black Awareness week in Newcastle, to the inspiring kick off session with our very own Executive sponsor Adora Igbokwe , the honest, frank and unfiltered Q&A session led by reputable and respected people leaders in the organization Chris Hales , Tomi Famuboni , Francesco Ntibarikure , Carolina Paz our fellow colleagues could start getting a glimpse of why we are celebrating our sisters.

Sadly, our community was hit twice by tragic mental health challenges, hence the next set of events focused around our mental health with Dr. Nneamaka Asiodu - Mind of Marcus, emphasizing on the expectations from our families and each of us to take care of one another, “Izandla ziyagezana”, looking at mental health from a black culture viewpoint and breaking stereotypes within the black community. This was further echoed by Dr Nike Folayan MBE (PhD, CEng., FIET) , during the “cultural competence and creating an inclusive workforce” session held in our London office. . The session outline steps that companies can take in order to build a truly inclusive workplace, a qualitative and quantitative baseline of the workforce; creating of safe spaces in which colleagues can air their concerns; further education about micro-aggression and micro-incivilities; creating a framework for equitable progression and diversifying the supply chain by embedding social value into contracts and inclusive leadership.

The AFBE-Baker Hughes Transition event held in Aberdeen, brought together almost 40 participants for a direct interaction/engagement with 贝克休斯 VP ENSC Abderrahmane Beloucif , UK Country Director, OFSE Claire Phillips , HR Directors ( Anastasiya Lyashchenko , Richard Bryce ), UK DE&I Chair Madhu Krishna and our very own Senior Legal Counsel Sally Okolo providing a candid perspective of the challenges Black & Other Minority Ethnic Women face in their career. I wont do justice with the feedback without referring you to this post. Thank You Jude Ayeni and Ibim Diri for the unblemished accomplishment.

As part of our community engagement, the Black Employee Network donated books to a local school in the Aberdeen community in addition to the "Breathing Together - A Partnership for Change" fundraising on behalf of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation .

The long month commemoration was officially brought to a close during the Grand Finale (attended both in person & virtually across all our UK sites) in Aberdeen on October 31, with a mini-trade fair and an all-female powerful panel session on the theme “Celebrating our sisters, saluting our sisters & Honouring Matriarchs of Movements”. Thank you to Louise Fraser-Queen MSc , Sally Okolo , Florence. C. Igboayaka and Laura Buchan for sharing your experiences of mentoring, mental well-being, but above all, partnering to support women in respective works of life. As an integral part of the Black culture, refreshment by local black caterers was highly appreciated by all those in attendance. We are already witnessing rapid actions like peering members with specific mentors & sponsors, community engagement with black vendors and lot more to come.

Once more, special thanks to our #BEN Black History Month UK Event/Comms team who put together these activities and worked tirelessly to see it come to pass. Thank you to everyone - JCI Aberdeen , Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE-UK) who came along to the celebrations. Princess Onyinyechi Ukanwa & Hassan Dasuki, thank you for the beautiful music throughout the celebration. It’s been incredible to see not only colleagues from the UK but lots of colleagues across the continent including other ERG’s attend these events - This is a testament to the Baker Hughes values of #Care, #Collaboration, #Lead and #Grow, as we take energy forward. For careers with Baker Hughes, visit https://careers.bakerhughes.com/global/en/home

?Be proud of who you are, all the things you have accomplished and celebrate even the small wins. Looking forward to a great Y24 :).