Following Stormzy's announcement last month that he will be donating £10,000,000 to help tackle racial injustice in Britain, BBC Children in Need has now announced that they will be matching the grime star's donation.
Stormzy made the pledge following the death of George Floyd and the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement. The 26-year-old musician said that his aim is to "fight against the odds of a racist system stacked against us and designed for us to fail from before we are even born." He adds, "Black people have been playing on an uneven field for far too long and this pledge is a continuation in the fight to finally try and even it."
The £10m from Children In Need will, like Stormzy's pledge, be donated over the span of ten years, with BBC Radio 1Xtra working in partnership to develop young black talent in the media. The donation will also be used as a source to help young business owners and to offer skills to boost employability.
Currently, Children In Need funds over 3,000 charities and projects that help disadvantaged children and young people in the UK. Some of the donations that are used to help young black people, but this additional funding will help in further creating opportunities. A panel of "young people and volunteers with direct experience of the black British experience" will decide on who gets funding from this new scheme in the coming weeks.
Today we’re pleased to announce we will be matching Stormzy’s £10M pledge with new funding to benefit young Black lives in the UK, in partnership with BBC @1Xtra
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After committing to paying for two black students to go to Cambridge University every year back in 2018, Stormzy said that this new gesture will help "in supporting and strengthening the young black community."
