Director’s Blog – Lisa Charlotte Davis
How lush for the event to begin with spoken word! Powerful, stirring and a perfect distillation and articulation of the key issues. I particularly loved the line “Strength is creating spaces where no-one has to shrink to survive.” Thank you Claire Ogah 👏
We heard from an excellent panel of speakers from a fantastic range of sectors – law, banking, utilities, voluntary sector – who talked about the need for inclusion to be the norm and flagged that you can’t get diversity without inclusion – we need to proactively shift the privilege, ensuring that people from diverse backgrounds know that they would be welcomed in a workplace and that customers and clients of services feel represented in the staff they interface with, empowering them to engage.
I was deeply impressed by the radical empathy expressed by Daniel Nyandiya Assoc. CIPD in a bid to meet people where they are, including engaging those whose behaviours appear to suggest racial exclusion with open questions, for instance around why they might have chosen to put up flags and what message that might be sending to different communities resident in the given area.
And I really appreciated Mohammed Roziur Rahman‘s tips on how we bring policies relating to the Equality Act to life in our organisations, including making small adjustments that significantly increase the confidence of staff members of different faiths to be themselves and a proactive effort to start conversations and create an environment where people feel comfortable speaking about who they are and what they need.
So what next?
The coalition have launched a campaign you can sign up to, to signal an active will to work against racism in our systems and culture – https://northeastantiracism.org.uk/become-the-bridge/
In the words of Nitin Shukla DL inspired by the recent Holi festivities – “Let’s colour our world not with prejudice and fear, but with courage, kindness and connection.”
