When Jo Oluwo left London and settled in Kent, she noticed something many newcomers to the county will recognise: people were scattered, and connections were hard to find. Her answer was to build something herself. In 2024 she founded Black Core Kent, a community group for black people based in Ashford, created to help others who had made the same move find each other.
The group’s recent work shows what that idea looks like in practice. Black Core Kent held a film screening telling the story of The Real Thing, the soul group best known for their hit You to Me Are Everything. The event formed part of a series celebrating Black British music and culture, and was one of a number of activities the group organised during Black History Month in October.
For Oluwo, the point of these gatherings goes beyond entertainment. She said the events run by the community interest company were helping people who had previously felt isolated feel seen and supported.
“I think people are craving community, and I am trying to show the black community that there’s loads going on,” she told BBC Radio Kent.
Her frustration is with the way people drift apart across a largely rural county. “Kent has loads of interesting people but they kind of disperse,” she said. What she wants to offer instead is somewhere dependable. “We want to build a safe community. When I use the word ‘safe’ I don’t mean that we are in fear, but it’s about being in a space where you know that you are welcome.”
That welcome has already spread beyond Ashford. Although the group began in the town, Oluwo said its activities have since expanded into Folkestone, Hythe and other parts of south-east Kent, drawing in people across a wider patch of the county.
Meanwhile, the film screening sits within a broader ambition. Oluwo said she wanted to host events that celebrated black culture while bringing together people from all backgrounds, not just one community. In her view, that mixing is where understanding grows, and education is central to it.
“I think education is the key,” she said. “If you are teaching children in schools it exposes them to a wider variety of cultures.”
For the people who attend, the difference is personal. Those who once felt adrift after relocating from the capital, or from elsewhere, now have a regular point of contact, a reason to gather, and a room full of people who understand what it is like to start again somewhere new. The screening of The Real Thing’s story gave them an evening of shared music history, but the group behind it is working on something longer lasting: a network that turns dispersed individuals into neighbours who know each other.
Oluwo’s message to black residents across Kent is straightforward. There is more happening around them than they may realise, and there is a place for them within it. The task now, as she sees it, is to keep showing up, keep hosting, and keep proving that the county’s communities do not have to stay scattered.
Black Core Kent’s events continue to grow across south-east Kent, and the group’s founder says she intends to keep building spaces where people know they are welcome, one gathering at a time.