Our Story

When I founded Sour Lemons, I was riddled with survivors guilt – Why me? Why am I the only person ‘allowed’ to sit at this table? Surely all of those incredible people over there should be here too?

I’ve been a cultural producer and strategist for the last ten years with the mandate to make the inside of cultural buildings reflect the outside. I became the poster girl for all things diversity and a celebrated anomaly.

Sitting at a table with people who all look and sound the same is mediocre at best, and infuriating at worst.

It’s an injustice that the smallest part of society – the white, formally educated & most privileged part – form the majority of creative decision makers, who get to tell stories on behalf of us all. What a narrow lens.

A year into launching Making LEMONADE – Our flagship creative leadership programme for young leaders who have experienced a ‘sour lemon’ or two in life – the systems designed to prevent people like me from reaching the top became a lot clearer. Continuing to only focus on the individual making lemonade was repeating my experiences of assimilation and I had no choice. Once you know, you know.

So I designed Enabling Environments to interrogate systems of oppression and put the responsibility back on to the organisations to change – not the individual. Systemic racism is not a new concept, but the amplification of Black Lives Matter has taken the conversation to a new level. And we are here for it. 

Our model involves tooling up our Young Leaders to hold mirrors & interrogate decision making through intentional  questioning. We work with a team of Intersectional Experts to ensure we are coming at it from all angles & we don’t focus on quick wins or short term solutions. This work is in depth and systemic which means it won’t be ‘fixed’ overnight. 

Sade Banks

Founder and Chief Executive