Gerlin Bean

Gerlin Bean (born 1940) is a Jamaican community worker who was active in the radical feminist and Black nationalist movements in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s.

Trained as a nurse, she became a dedicated community activist and social worker, involved in the founding of the Black Women's Action Committee of the Black Unity and Freedom Party, the women's section of the Black Liberation Front, the Brixton Black Women's Group, and the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD).

Bean's work and activism focused on eliminating discriminatory policies for people of colour, women, and people with disabilities.

She fought for equal educational opportunity, fair wages, adequate housing, and programmes that supported families, such as counselling services, child care, and health care.

Bean was born in 1940 in Hanover Parish, Jamaica, to a couple who were farmers.

The rural setting taught her about communal living and instilled the values of mutual aid in the community.

She trained as a general and psychiatric nurse after moving to Surrey, England, at the age of 19.

When she turned 20 in 1960, she had a daughter, Jennifer, but broke off her engagement to her daughter's father.

From the time Jennifer was six months old, Bean arranged foster care for her with a local family so that her child's life would remain stable whilst she worked.

Around 1966, Bean began to attend meetings with the Gay Liberation Front in London.

While she recognised that some people viewed homosexuality as a threat to families, she maintained people should be free to be who they were.

In 1969, the Caribbean Education and Community Workers' Association, based in North London, organised a conference to evaluate how West Indian children were faring in the British school system.

A paper presented at the symposium by Bernard Coard demonstrated the systemic bias of administrative policies, which routinely placed Caribbean children in special classes for students with learning disabilities.

Parents were outraged at the report's conclusion that their children were considered intellectually inferior because of their race.

Parents from Brixton met to discuss a pioneering solution brought forward by Bean, Reverend Anthony Ottey, and the teacher Ansel Wong to hold supplementary schools to help children with their homework and reading.

The plan also aimed to empower parents by teaching them how to interact with teachers and administrators and be more involved in their children's education.

The trio, who worked together at the Gresham Youth Project, founded the Afiwe School, which among other services sent volunteers to accompany parents to school meetings, provided tutoring services, and assisted in outreach with schools and tuition solutions.

Bean, Ottey, and Wong also provided information to the Lambeth Council for Community Relations, which launched a temporary housing and counselling service for runaway youth.

Bean, Gloria Cameron, and Mabel Carter began meeting as the West Indian Parents Action Group (WIPAG) around 1971, but the group was not formalised until 1974.

The goal of the organisation was to address under-achievement by Black children in the British school system and was particularly focused on early childhood education that gave training to children before they entered formal schooling.

Bean was also involved with Wong, Lu Garvey, and Tony Soares in 1972 in establishing a cooperative in the basement of 61 Golborne Road in Kensal Town, where community experts were able to train unemployed young people in various skills, including barbering, electrical repair, and typesetting.

Around the same time, Wong and Bean created the Abeng Centre in Brixton.

The staff of the facility worked in conjunction with the Afiwe School, providing advice and counselling services, vocational training, and serving as a youth club.

After searching for a suitable property, WIPAG secured a lease from the Housing Directorate of Lambeth in 1976 for 7 Canterbury Crescent, an abandoned terraced house.

Delays in funding for staff training and equipment pushed the opening of the facility back to January 1978.

Within a short period of time, 24 children were enrolled and more than 80 children were on the waiting list.

Problems with the building and the need for a bigger space led Bean and Cameron to search for a more suitable location.

They found a building at 3 & 5 Gresham Road and negotiated a 30-year lease at a peppercorn rent with the Lambeth Council.

The planning authority granted WIPAG renovation permission in 1979 and in 1981 the facility was given official charitable status.

In 1983, Bean left England when Zimbabwe gained its independence and worked there on development programmes for women and children for five years.

She later returned to Jamaica and focused on women's and children's issues there too.

She was the managing director of 3D Projects, a charity that provided assistance programmes for children with disabilities and their families.

She has been involved in the development of schools to assist children and in other community education programmes regarding disability.

Bean has also served on the St. Catherine's Parish Council.

The new nursery school officially opened in 1983, the year Bean moved to Zimbabwe.

Bean earned a bachelor's degree in Social Science and Administration at the London School of Economics and in 1995 completed a master's degree in Public Health at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica.

After several years of working as a nurse in London, Bean left the field of medical care and began working as a community development and youth activist.

She helped set up the 70s Coffee Bar in Paddington, which was organised by the Westminster City Council as a youth activities and counselling centre.

Later, she left Paddington and moved to Brixton to found the Gresham Youth Project.

Her activism has been celebrated by activities arranged for the UK Black History Month festivities, such as the 2014 exhibit "400 Years of African Women Resistance Leaders" in Islington, and a 2017 sculpture of the clenched fists of Black women activists that was exhibited at the Guildhall Art Gallery in London.