Long-term UNISON activist Sharon Foster (pictured) has won the 2025 Nelson Mandela Award. The award is given to those who exemplify Nelson Mandela’s values of ‘determination, a desire for unity, and strength in the face of injustice’.
Sharon has worked in public services for almost four decades. Throughout this time, she has been an active champion of equality, inclusion and diversity and played a leading role in fighting domestic abuse.
Sharon has held several roles within UNISON, which most recently included chairing the national women’s committee and the Black members’ standing orders committee. She is an active steward in the Bristol branch and the South West regional women’s and Black members’ committees, where she champions equality, inclusion and diversity causes and has also played a leading role in the fight against domestic abuse and race discrimination.
Her unwavering passion, leadership, and dedication to equality have made a significant impact on countless lives, exemplifying the core values of the union.
Sharon has also helped bring historical changes to the union, including helping to develop UNISON’s leadership training programme, which is being rolled out to all members. She also helped develop the national Black members motion, which saw recruitment of Black officers become union policy.
Her campaigning hasn’t stopped within the union though. Sharon has also campaigned tirelessly for changes to universal credit and visited 11 Downing Street. She has also represented UNISON at parliamentary lobbies demanding accountability for the Windrush scandal.
On top of her dedication to the union, Sharon has also been a magistrate in Bristol, spent time as a school governor and is the single parent of an adult child.
In 2023, Sharon was appointed as High Sheriff of Bristol – the first Black Caribbean woman to hold the position. Sharon’s main priority was raising awareness of children’s exclusions from school, an issue which sees Black boys disproportionately affected.
Sharon also launched The Shining Stars, an event that celebrated the achievements and resilience of previously excluded children from school and promoted future opportunities for them.
She is currently a board member of Learning Partnership West, which exists to ensure no child or young person is left without support with their education, and is also a trustee of Beira Mozambique Trust, a project of the Southern African Resources Centre which emerged in the UK during the historic campaign to free Nelson Mandela during his imprisonment.
The article Sharon Foster wins UNISON’s Nelson Mandela Award 2025 first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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