Mo Siewcharran Fund pays out £132k and helps 27 trainees since launch

The Mo Siewcharran Fund has supported 27 trainees and awarded more than £132,000 to organisations supporting aspiring talent from Black, Asian and ethnically diverse communities since its launch in 2018, an inaugural impact report has shown.

Set up in 2018 by John Seaton in memory of his wife Mo Siewcharran, who worked in publishing and passed away in 2017 aged 59, the Creative Access-administered fund supports internships for young talent from ethnicities that are under-represented in the theatre, publishing and music industries.

Its report shows that, since launching, the fund has supported 11 theatre trainees, 13 in publishing and one in music, as well as awarding grants totalling £132,000 to 27 organisations, such as Soho Theatre, Europa Editions UK, Liverpool University Press and the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme – 19 within London and eight outside of the capital.

In total, the organisation has funded £53,300 worth of theatre-based internships, £74,038 for internships in the publishing sector and £4,915 in music. 

Interns have been placed across the UK in Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Swindon, Birmingham and London and have come from areas across the UK such as the north-west, Scotland and Newcastle.

Two-thirds (63%) of the interns supported by the Mo Siewcharran Fund secured a career role at the end of their traineeship, moreover, and post-internship, nine out of 10 (89%) trainees continued to work in the same sector they did their traineeship in. 

Organisations which were able to hire an intern or interns with the help of the Mo Siewcharran Fund said they felt that the hires contributed greatly to their diversity and had a positive impact on their teams and workplaces, according to the report. In all, 56% said the hires brought new insights and ideas, while 36% noted they brought fresh perspectives. 

Two-thirds said they would not have been able to make a hire from a diverse background without the support from the fund and a third that the fund had enabled them to broaden their talent pipeline.

Responding to the findings Seaton said: “It is great to be leading the way in creating a more diverse and inclusive culture in publishing and theatre. The past two years have been incredibly challenging for the sector, but we now have a real opportunity to make fundamental improvements by changing hiring practices and recruiting talent from diverse backgrounds and I am very pleased that the Mo Siewcharran Fund is playing an active role in this mission.”