About Us

About BME Learning West Yorkshire

The Black and Minority Ethnic Learning Network (West Yorkshire) was formed in February 2007 with the support of Learning and Skills Council ESF Co-financing. The Network aims to bring together black and minority ethnic community organisations that either deliver or host learning and skills provision or that wish to develop the capacity to do so.

The objectives of the BME Learning Network are:

To provide a coherent and representative voice on behalf of our members
To inform the learning and skills agenda and investment strategy in the sub-region, regionally and nationally about the needs of the West Yorkshire BME communities
To provide our members with appropriate infrastructure support to enable them to develop their learning and skills delivery potential and
To support our members by actively leading consortia bids where appropriate commissioning opportunities arise.

Our Mission

The mission of the BME Learning Network is to connect and support the BME VCS learning providers in West Yorkshire and to create a powerful force to influence the learning and skills agenda.

The keys to success for the BME Learning Network are to capitalise on our unique position in terms of our unrivalled knowledge of the BME communities in West Yorkshire and their learning and skills needs, our access to and trust of hard to reach learners and BME businesses and our broad based membership of BME Third Sector organisations spanning both established and new minority communities, asylum seekers and refugees.

We will draw on this expertise to sell our services to commissioners across the region, ensuring that outputs are delivered in a professional, responsive, quality assured and culturally sensitive way and by so doing, securing the long term sustainability of the Network. The local market for this enterprise is wide open for service providers with the unique specialism we offer in terms of our BME learning and skills focus.

Lancaster Consulting, a small private sector consultancy whose multi-ethnic team supported the Network’s development, has a close working relationship with the BME Learning Network.

Lancaster Consulting has agreed to function as the Network’s accountable body until the 2008 AGM. You can find out more about the company on their website www.lancasterconsultingweb.co.uk