Diversity in Leadership Europe
Fourth international Newsletter
1. International Summer School “Diversity at Work”, Reggio Emilia
2. Webinar, “Towards an Inclusive Public Transport”
3. Dissemination Event in Dublin
Dear colleagues and friends,
The European Learning Partnership “Diversity in Leadership Europe” is officially coming to an end.
After the final international meeting in London, the European partners met for the last time at the International Summer School in Reggio Emilia to learn and exchange about how to foster diversity at work.
 Finishing the official period of the European partnership on “Diversity in Leadership”, we also publish our newly designed online toolkit
www.diversityinleadership.citizensforeurope.org.There your can find the project results and the documentations of all the workshop contents in the different cities. Moreover, you can read more about the partners and their activities in local, national, and international networks. You might as well want to check out our previous newsletters. We thank you for your cooperation and interest in our activities.
      
The partnership is funded by the LifeLongLearning programme ofGrundtvig. Its objective is self-empowerment through knowledge building and sharing at European level and with that, to boost local projects in participating cities based on DiverseCity.
DiverseCity onBoard initiative of the Maytree Foundation connects qualified candidates from visible minority and under-represented immigrant communities to the governance bodies of agencies, boards and commissions and voluntary organizations in the Greater Toronto Area. Our sincerest thanks to Maytree for their generous support in the concept development of this project.
1. International Summer School “Diversity at Work”, Reggio Emilia
On June 11-12, 2015 Reggio Emilia hosted the “DIVERSITY AT WORK. International Summer School on Diversity Advantage“, organized by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Intercultural Centre Mondinsieme, and the voluntary work centre DarVoce, with the support of the Council of Europe and European Commission’s programme, Intercultural Cities.
DIVERSITY AT WORK assembled a selection of Italian and international best practices on diversity advantage and provided a forum for exchange. It was open to everyone interested in the issue of cultural diversity advantage, such as local, regional and national public administration and decision-making bodies, trade associations, companies and firms, university and high school students, and non-profit organizations.
The International Summer School on Diversity Advantage was the final event of two European projects financed by the Lifelong Learning Programme of European Union within the Leonardo and Grundtvig framework, DICE – Developing Intercultural Competences for Enterprises and DiverseCity onBoard – A European Learning Experience.
2. Webinar: “Towards an Inclusive Public Transport”
Participants
• Immigrant Council of Ireland
• Transdev
• Dublin Bus
• Irish Rail
• Vielfalt entscheidet
The webinar introduced the campaign “There’s NO Room on Board for Racism and Discrimination”, which was initiated by the Immigrant Council of Ireland in cooperation with players of Dublin’s public transport system. It informed us about the companies’ endeavors towards generating awareness of racism and discrimination in public transport, as well as in their own staff. In the beginning, Teresa Buczkowska from the Immigrant Council of Ireland provided context information on the Irish society. Since Ireland is a rather new country of immigration, there is a lack of proper legislation to penalize racism. Subsequently, there is an issue of underreporting of racist incidents, as the population is not properly informed about the rights and possibilities they have. The activities included poster campaigns, research and monitoring of racist incidents, and the creation of new stamps featuring people from diverse backgrounds living in Ireland. The awarded and even replicated campaign accomplished the aims of reaching an increase in the reports of racist incidents, around 85% in 2013 and further 51% in 2014.
The topic of racism was placed on the public agenda generating a dynamic parliamentary and media debate and putting political pressure on the government to act against racism. Moreover, it encouraged the recording of racism in other areas, such as housing and to specify the forms of racism, e.g. anti-muslim racism. Also within the enterprises measures were introduced to foster mutual understanding and respect. Sammy Akorede spoke from the perspective of an employee at Transdev emphasizing that 25% of the employees had a migration background, which is why it is of utmost importance to conduct diversity awareness trainings with the staff and respect the needs of the employees. As an example for the company’s support of cultural difference he mentioned that the Muslim staff is allowed to take breaks for prayer times and they can go to the mosque nearby the premises. Due to the tremendous success of the cooperation between the Immigrant Council and the public transport system, the campaign was renewed for a national program starting in 2016.
For more info, please contact: 
Teresa Buczkowska Teresa@immigrantcouncil.ie
3. Dissemination Event in Dublin
Irish local dissemination event took place on the 6th of July 2015. We took the opportunity to present the objectives of the Diversity in Leadership Europe project during a launch of a report ‘Voices of Young Migrant Men’. The report was produced by the Immigrant Council of Ireland as a result of the ‘MiMen’ research project. The research looked at the integration experience of young male migrants who were born outside the European Union and came of age in Ireland. The report explores their integration journey in the community, at school, in employment and in engaging with public services; their stories of discrimination and acceptance. One of the common themes that the participants of the project were revealing was the lack of role models in their life. The lack of diversity in higher positions resulted in them feeling unrepresented, disconnected and marginalised by public and private institutions.
The finding of this research highlighted the need for greater ethnic diversity in leadership position in order to foster integration and sustain cohesive society. Our work to date with young migrants aimed at enabling them to become role models for their communities and to prepare them to take up leadership positions in the future. The project ‘Ambassadors for Change’ was designed with the intention to create a network of young skilled and empowered young leaders who could fill in the diversity gap in decision-making positions that later resonated in the MiMen project. During the event we’ve delivered a formal presentation about the objectives of the Diversity in Leadership Europe project.  We also distributed leaflets with information about the project history, its goals and we provided links for the on-line information concerning to this project. The event was opened by the Minister of Equality, New Communities and Culture Mr Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD. It was attended by about 50 people from variety of public and private institutions as well as representatives of NGO’s, police forces and local authorities. This event was highly publicised on social media and in mainstream media. |
