Based in Manchester Central Library, the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre is an open-access library specialising in the study of race, ethnicity and migration.

The Education Trust is the sister organisation that offers ongoing training to community groups with an interest in producing archive-quality research materials. The Centre also supports project planning and delivery from bid writing to workshops, exhibitions and the long-term preservation of research.

The Centre recently identified a lack of understanding and ambiguity from members of the public and professionals as to the identity of the Centre and the services provided. To increase visibility, the Centre has been working on a number of engagement strategies with the public and wider cultural sector.

In early 2019, the Centre embarked on a project to redevelop the website. The rationale behind this has been to create a better understanding of the organisation as well as to actively engage the public with their activities and services.

The new and improved website makes information on upcoming events, collections, blogs and digital resources easily accessible; information about October’s Black History Month programme can be found on the events page as well as download resources to help you create your own archive.

The website has allows for oral history collections to be made available online. This includes excerpts from Manchester’s Pan African African Congress: 50 years on, documenting the life stories of delegates who attended the congress in 1949 as well as excerpts from Anwar Ditta, telling the story of her campaign against the Home Office when her children were denied entry into the UK.

As a cultural heritage organisation the Centre is incredibly proud of what it has achieved and what it continues to achieve. In order to stay relevant, it needs to ensure that it has visibility and accessibility in order to reach the widest possible audiences.