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As Part of Black History Month 1Xtra once again celebrates its Future Figures. Future Figures is a way to recognise those members who are giving back to the Black community, and a time to celebrate the countless acts that are taking place up and down the country today by those who are helping to create the black history of tomorrow.

Winsome Duncan is a neurodiverse woman with a massive heart and vision of getting her wider community to write books and tell their legacy stories. As a creative, educator, writer and publisher she has more than 15 years of experience in the industry. As an author of 26 books, which includes her recent number one superhero Caribbean smash hit community book 'The Popcorn House', which is about two cousins Zion and Neveah who get transported to the magical sun kissed island of Kalaria. Winsome works persistently with budding authors and entrepreneurs to help them realise their book-writing dreams.

She is the CEO of a publishing house called Peaches Publications and a not-for-profit social enterprise the Look Like Me Book Challenge C.I.C. which has a particular focus on telling stories and raising the voices of the Black community which includes children aged 7 – 18 years old. Winsome secured her first corporate partnership with Clear Channel who have featured young black and brown authors in a national billboard campaign. Her cohort of young authors and their books have been featured on bus stops, in shopping centres and on black phone boxes, which is currently across the country during 2024. This is a remarkable achievement and the first of its kind in the country.

Her latest venture is a ground-breaking campaign called ‘Raised Voices’ which supports Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) young people to become authors writing one collective community book. It features positive poetry, motivational monologues and real-life raps directly from their lived experience and is funded by Â鶹ԼÅÄ CHILDREN IN NEED WE MOVE FUND & 1XTRA. Since the Guardian newspaper published that just 10% of BAME main characters are in children's books within the UK. This is compared to 33.5% of BAME school children in education. Sadly, inanimate objects are more likely to feature in children’s books than Black or Brown faces.

Ms Duncan is passionate about diverse, multicultural 3D animation, her motto is ‘Changing the Narrative’. To raise awareness of equal representation in television she began fund-raising for £50,000 in 2024 to create a 3D sizzle reel, develop a script writing team and pitch for the children and young people animation Kalaria – The Irie Island, which is a Caribbean superhero story.

Despite obstacles of suffering ill health in 2024, surviving the COVID pandemic and learning difficulties setbacks whilst battling dyslexia, this could have been a great reason to have prevented her vision from becoming a reality. However, she has overcome this tumultuous time and is thankful for her life, gifts and talents. She regularly gets invited to talk as an inspirational speaker at events and in the media on such topics and has won a number of prestigious awards for her work in the community.