‘You can’t just be talking to yourself’: building a BAME network

Since its official launch less than a year ago, the Black Professionals in Construction (BPIC) network has grown swiftly, to boast more than 950 members at the time of writing.

The network’s founder, Amos Simbo (pictured), seems as surprised as anyone at the speed with which his brainchild has taken off: “At our first event, we had about 200 people turn up,” he tells Construction News. “And I was literally asking, ‘Why are you guys here?’”

“I wasn’t even aware about diversity… The fact that there were no other black people, I just never thought about it”

Amos Simbo

Simbo works as a technical manager for fit-out specialist ThirdWay Contracts, serving as BPIC chairman only in his spare time. As his idea to form a network for professionals from black and minority ethnic backgrounds has gained momentum, he has assembled a small team of like-minded individuals to help him put the group’s activities on a business footing.

Having graduated from Loughborough University in 2011, Simbo is still early in his career but has big ideas for the future, and his obvious energy and positivity have no doubt played a big part in BPIC’s rapid rise.

Born in Zimbabwe, Simbo moved to the UK aged 15. “I’ve lived half my life here and half in Africa,” he says. “So my perspectives are not the same as someone that grew up here.”

In particular, he says his background has given him a stronger appreciation of the opportunities offered by the construction sector, compared with people raised in the UK. “When I came over here, for me, everything was a privilege,” he says, explaining that he grew up in a country where for many, life choices are severely limited.

Growing into the role

When he started BPIC, Simbo was not focused on the diversity agenda or battling prejudice, or any similar goal. Instead, he started BPIC “just for networking purposes”, to meet other people. “I wasn’t even aware about diversity; I didn’t know anything about it,” he recalls. “I was just getting on with things. The fact that there were no other black people, I just never thought about it.”

He adds: “I’d say that’s probably a good thing because I never had anything going on in my mind about what I couldn’t achieve.”

Simbo has since given himself a crash course in the issues around diversity in construction. He began attending diversity events and quizzing fellow delegates to find out what they were looking for. “They gave me so many different reasons: ‘I want to be around people like me’; ‘I want to be part of a community’; ‘I don’t know how to network with other people’ – all sorts of different reasons,” he says. He also held focus groups to narrow down what BPIC ought to offer.

Since its official launch in September 2019, BPIC has also seen “a flood of companies” contacting the network that are aiming to work with BPIC to “diversify their workforce, trying to get more people coming through into the industry, showcasing role models” and many related requests. Simbo says BPIC has so far established formal relations with six companies, most recently with VolkerWessels.

Local authorities and central government have also come calling, drawn in by BPIC’s broad coverage of all professions across the built environment. “Before we did this network, there wasn’t anything like it that encompassed everyone,” Simbo explains. “We’ve had groups for architects or engineers, but [nothing] that’s an umbrella.”

He says councils such as Waltham Forest, where only about half of residents identify as white, want to find a way to connect “the community with how it’s being built”.

But Simbo adds that the small team running BPIC is trying to resist being pulled in too many different directions and is focusing instead on providing value for its members. “We get hit up a lot with different people wanting different things,” he says. “Companies are like: ‘Can we have a chat? Can you do a webinar? Can you do a podcast?’ [But] we’ve only got finite energy […] It’s [about] trying to direct that energy onto what is going to make the network sustainable.”

Like football vs ice hockey

As its name suggests, BPIC focuses “on the professional side [of the sector] from entry level all the way up to senior management” and currently has a big emphasis on promoting career awareness among young people. “I don’t know if people realise, but people from minority backgrounds often don’t know about construction,” Simbo states. “Companies have got issues [about how they recruit] but the communities themselves don’t know about construction. They just don’t.”

He likens the situation to appreciation of football in Brazil versus a country like Canada, where ice hockey is the national game. “No disrespect to scaffolders, but people think construction is all scaffolders,” he notes. “They don’t realise it’s a whole ecosystem. It’s a whole industry.”

“It’s not a fight, it’s about awareness and understanding"

Amos Simbo

Simbo adds: “For me, that was the biggest thing. As much as we want to get construction companies to employ black people, the communities themselves don’t have that knowledge. So let’s showcase the role models; let’s encourage people to come.”

BPIC began that process by profiling a selection of its members who work in a wide range of roles in the sector, in a campaign called Careers in Construction. It plans a similar focus on the careers of its women members in July, to try to further break down stereotypes.

Given that BPIC is a networking organisation, it’s no surprise to learn that its programme of face-to-face events has suffered cancellations due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Conversely, BPIC has seen a surge of interest as support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has grown, following the killing of George Floyd in the US. Simbo compares the shift in attitudes to the galvanising impact of Greta Thunberg on the climate-change agenda after years of campaigning from supposedly influential figures such as Al Gore. “Greta Thunberg was something completely new,” he observes. “Sometimes it’s just the timing of things.”

He also notes that, just as the BLM protest marches have united people from many different backgrounds, so participation in BPIC is open to anyone regardless of ethnicity. “You can’t just be talking to yourself,” he says simply. “There’s no point. You’ve got to be able to talk to different people.”

Simbo adds: “It’s not a fight, it’s about awareness and understanding. It’s not black against white. It’s for people to get to a place of empathy – to say, ‘I get your point.’ We’ve got to move on in this conversation, to find the solutions.”