As part of our ongoing journey and commitment to becoming a diverse and intentionally inclusive organisation, the UP Projects team and Trustees have embarked on a training programme led by Ishreen Bradley and Kami Nuttall of Belonging Pioneers. This week we explored the question “Why Be Consciously Inclusive?”
Beginning with a look at unconscious bias, how biases are formed and the different types of biases we may have (noting that everyone has biases to some degree) we explored our own individual “diversity friendliness”, our biases and their potential effects.
The session then advocated for a shift towards “conscious inclusion” which encourages a raised awareness of the way that we interact as individuals, how we relate to different groups in our communities and how dominant cultures, structures and ways of communicating can exclude certain groups.
A TedX talk by Jefferson Seely ‘Diversity Inclusion and Consciousness’, explores this idea of conscious inclusion further. He acknowledges that “diversity is the most important phenomenon in the 21st Century…Diversity is the capacity to compatibly reconcile differences which have the potential to create conflict, prevent equitable opportunity and the source of national and global crises"
In another Tedx Talk, Wendy Knight Agard encourages us to tackle inclusion "From the inside out" saying that: "The more you gain the ability to challenge your beliefs about yourself, the more open you can be to others and their way of being."