Black church and charity leaders spoke of the challenges and hopes facing Britain’s black community at a groundbreaking gathering on Saturday.

The State of Black Britain Symposium was hosted by Baptist minister and Street Pastors co-founder the Rev David Shosanya to coincide with Black History Month.

Keynote speaker Lord Victor Olufemi Adebowale, chief executive of the social care enterprise Turning Point, said that problems like violence and unemployment affecting the black community were the same problems affecting the whole of British society.

He encouraged black people to see themselves as ‘and-and’ people – black and British – rather than ‘either-or’.

“What we have now at this time is an opportunity to create an ‘and-and’ society, an ‘and-and’ justification for getting things right,” he said.

“The ‘and-and’ generation is a good thing because the state of black Britain is the state of Britain.

“We’re not some separate state or society. This isn’t South Africa circa 1962. We are society. We are what makes society work.”

Lord Adebowale said it was not enough to pray because God helps those who help themselves.

“(US President Barack) Obama has taught us one thing and it isn’t about race. It’s about engagement in the process of politics and in the process of society,” he said.

Angela Sarkis, Chief Executive of the Nurture Group Network, pointed to some of the challenges facing the black community.

She said that the black community had “systematically failed to see the needs of those beyond our church doors” and had not done enough to stop black people from ending up in the criminal justice system.

“We have systematically held our heads in the sand while we see our young people taken off like fodder in this society, being criminalised, ending up in mental institutions as if it doesn’t matter, A, because they are not our children and, B, because they are not Christians.