Oasis Academy Coulsdon was delighted to welcome the Deputy and Assistant Cultural Attachés from the US Embassy on Friday 26^th February. Erica King and Tim Gerhardson have been busy visiting a number of London schools during the last month to talk to students about Black History Month, which is celebrated in the month of February in the United States.

Erica currently manages the Ambassador’s two youth outreach programmes, the sixth form workshops and Young Leaders UK and has previously worked as the sole Consular Officer in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Tim is the U.S. Embassy London’s Deputy Cultural Affairs Officer.  He joined the diplomatic corps in 1998, serving in Croatia, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Washington, DC.

During the afternoon spent at the Academy Erica and Tim had the chance to meet with students over lunch who had worked on the Academy’s Black History Month Celebrations back in October.

After meeting with the Year 11s who put together the assemblies that marked Black History Month last year  Erica said:  “The students are incredibly bright and engaging to talk to.”

Erica and Tim then ran a workshop for a group of Year 9 students, discussing racial equality as well as the history of Black History Month in America. The students were unanimous in their opinion that this was a fantastic opportunity and they were enormously grateful to Tim and Erica for giving up their time.

Andy Booth, Oasis Academy Principal, said:   “We are extremely fortunate to have Erica and Tim give up their time to visit our Academy, and our students have certainly got a lot out of the visit. It has been an extremely interesting afternoon and a fantastic opportunity for our students to learn about an important topic from another perspective”.