Every year the LGBTQ+ community is celebrated across the globe through Pride events. In America, the month of June is dedicated as Pride month, in the UK, we have events happening in different cities and towns throughout summer. This is great but we also must recognise the importance of Pride not just for a month (or summer) but every day, all year round.
This year, Covid has meant Pride has gone virtual all over the world, making it easier than ever for everyone to get involved – powerful, right? This weekend it is Greater Manchester’s turn, who are doing an Alternative Manchester Pride Festival which brings with it new things like the first Manchester Pride Human Rights Forum, Village Bakers Bake-A-Long, Queering Manchester Museum LGBTQ+ Programme for Manchester Pride and much more. Be sure to get involved to help raise money for one of the UK's leading LGBTQ+ charities so that they can put it back into the community and raise awareness for LGBTQ+ issues in the fight for equality.
Removing barriers in the workplace and allowing people to be themselves is key to a healthy and productive culture. LGBTQ+ empowerment and the fight for equality aligns with our core values and something we strongly support. Alongside our zero-tolerance policy on discrimination, we want to do a lot more to proactively support the community, both internally and with our clients, in a bid to becoming an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and continuing that allyship. Taking part in the Manchester Pride Festival last year for the first time was a great platform for us to build on and we will be looking at how we can do this more over the next 12 months.
We want to reach out to the LGBTQ+ community to help us drive this forward and we need your help to do this. If you work closely with any LGBTQ+ businesses or service users, please get in touch with the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) group so that we can work with you to build relationships with them and gain insight on how we can better support the community.
We will be launching the Pride in Practice training which is a nationally recognised LGBT inclusion programme. The training is for anyone who wants to increase their knowledge and confidence of LGBTQ+ inclusion at home, at work and in the community. There will be the opportunity for those interested to complete one of the ten online modules available or to become an LGBTQ+ Champion by completing all 10 modules of the programme. We would love for you to get involved by emailing us then you can share your learning and how you’ve transferred it into practice with colleagues.
We have also recently joined the All Equals Charter which is a Manchester Pride initiative to help businesses get a better understanding on how to recognise and challenge any form of discrimination. It is a thought-through support system which will help to guide us to achieve a truly diverse, inclusive and equal workplace. If you are interested in joining the subgroup which will be carrying out an assessment of our current practices and service provisions against the commitments of the charter and developing an action plan to close any gaps, then please get in touch.
Our short survey Mark Hughes shared yesterday is open until Friday 18 September for you to share your ideas and to help us assess how inclusive we are as an organisation. The survey is anonymous and the results will help us better understand how inclusive and diverse we are and attempt to tackle any potential barriers identified, so please be honest in your answers so we can get a realistic picture and take any appropriate action.
We are excited about what we will be doing to truly become an ally of the LGBTQ+ community and celebrate equality through storytelling and open conversations.
EDI group