One of the Trust's major activities will be to dismantle the barriers that prevent black and minority ethnic or disadvantaged young people from pursuing careers in the professions specialising in built environments.

While there have been many improvements, certain fundamental concerns remain - for example, the proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds continues to decline at each stage of architectural training, and just 2% of professional architects in the UK are from ethnic minority backgrounds. Clearly these issues still need to be addressed.

We are constantly reminded that there is a genuine need for the Trust - especially by parents of disadvantaged children, who observe that the negative image imposed on them by society means that they are automatically perceived and treated as "problem children", whose behaviour needs correcting. This in turn causes the children to develop a profoundly negative image of themselves.

Outside the educational environment, some adults from excluded communities strive for success in order to challenge the unfavourable stereotypes with which they are often associated. It is vital that the Trust should draw on the experiences of these individuals, encouraging them to act as mentors in local communities. It could be argued that those who achieve have a social responsibility to inspire and support others.

If the legacy of Stephen Lawrence and others like him is to inspire highly talented young men and women to act and to succeed, the Trust must be there beside them, nurturing and guiding them along the way.

Engaging with the professionals
Like any non-professional organisation, however, the Trust can only do so much. So it is vital that architects like David Adjaye and Sunand Prasad continue their amazing work in promoting the architectural profession to young people. Adjaye's commendable mission to make Britain's buildings more accessible to all, and Prasad's tireless work to make the profession more inclusive, are both remarkable. The architectural profession has signalled its support for an agenda of inclusion by funding and promoting their work. This in turn is helping to engage the interest of students from diverse backgrounds.

Working with and through the education system
All levels of the education sector are facing their own challenges to promote social and racial equality - an essential factor in helping black and ethnic minority pupils at primary schools to progress and achieve, so that they may eventually become the professionals of the future. The Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 and the MacPherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence set down numerous guidelines and recommendations on race equality in schools, such as introducing ethnic monitoring policies to admissions, and recording racist incidents within schools.

In the further education sector, the Commission for Black Staff, an offshoot of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (jointly funded by the Association of Colleges and the NATFHE teaching union) recently took evidence from black staff around the country. Many discrepancies between them and their white colleagues were found - black employees were more likely to work part-time or on insecure short-term contracts, for example. From these findings, the Commission has tried to put together a best-practice policy which it hopes will address these issues.

Supporting new approaches to effective teaching and learning
It is essential that we concentrate on solving the education system's persistent problems. The barriers encountered by disadvantaged students are a concern not just for its professions and partners, but of course for the students themselves. Of even greater concern are the barriers imposed by conventional mindsets that judge success according to intrinsically exclusive parameters, often damaging the self-esteem of underprivileged pupils at a very early stage in their development.

A new emphasis on the creative arts and digital media as a way of developing young people's creative potential and improving their self-confidence has emerged as a successful means of engaging pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Schools need to focus more on harnessing this creativity and talent which, if capitalised on, can help pupils to succeed and better prepare them for a wide variety of opportunities in further or higher education.

Schools need to adopt a new mindset, one which appreciates imaginative insight, and recognises that achievement is not limited to a set of narrow criteria.