One year on from the death of George Floyd

The events on the 27th May 2020 which led to the death of George Floyd by a police officer were shocking, upsetting and deeply concerning. This amplified the work of the Black Lives Matters movement, which had been fighting for substantial changes in society to bring equality for black people. Over the following weeks and months,  driven by anger at his death and many others like it, and the desire for justice and equality, people across the world united against racism, opening the door to conversations about the issue of inequalities that are sadly still so prevalent in our society.

As an organisation, we took notice. And we recognised that there was far more that we could be doing.

We began our journey. We have been determined to listen, learn and grow and support the wider fight for equality in any way we can.

The journey so far

• Our CEO Jude Taylor sat down to discuss with Board Member Toyin Higgs to talk about the uncomfortable conversations we need to have and difficult questions we need to ask, where we want to get to, and why it’s so important.

• • As a follow on from this, we are holding a Board and staff drop-in session on 1st June to continue our ongoing dialogue about uncomfortable conversations and agree our commitment to inclusive language and why it is so powerful.

• • We are one of five Active Partnership’s who have signed up to be early adopters of the Race Equality Code and now have a clear list of Race Equality actions we MUST implement to receive our quality mark in this area.

• • We have set up an Equality Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) sub-group of the Together Active Board. The overall purpose of the group is to ensure Together Active becomes the most equitable organisation it can be and is accountable and transparent in all these aspects of equality, diversity, and inclusion.

• • One of the key actions of the ED&I group will be to develop a framework for making organisational decisions which embed equality, diversity, and inclusion in everything we do including Leadership and governance; Policy and procedures; Business Operations and Communication and engagement.

• • The group will also make recommendations about the development of an inclusion network as we strive to reach out to those communities and listen and learn from people with a variety of lived experiences of discrimination, exclusion, negative stereotyping or just plain ignored.

• • The Board and Staff will come together in September to help shape and sharpen the early drafts of the ED&I framework and Inclusion Network.

This is just the start of the process, but we have clear intentions about where we want to get to. We are learning, developing and seeking understanding so that we can be allies to the cause. Equity and equality are at our core and we are determined to ensure everyone who works for or with us or engages in our services feels welcomed, supported and included.