Within World Vision UK we believe racism is an abhorrent form of discrimination. We will not allow discrimination to have any place in our organisation. That’s why we have been passionately and continually seeking to improve the diversity and inclusivity of our organisation, particularly recognising the lack of diversity at our senior management levels. From March 2020 we have included both gender and ethnicity diversity data in our quarterly performance reporting, building on a longer period of monitoring of gender diversity.
Over the last two years our Diversity and Inclusion actions have included in-depth unconscious bias training for our People and Culture Team and for members of our staff-led Diversity and Inclusion Group, the development of Equality in Recruitment Training for all managers and a commitment to having diverse candidate pools for all leadership recruitment.
Because we believe racial discrimination is particularly abhorrent, following the tragic and pivotal death of George Floyd in the US and in response to feedback from staff, our leadership team ran a number of “listening and learning” sessions where our BAME staff shared their experiences of discrimination outside the organisation and within it. It became clear that, despite the work done to date, our policies, processes and behaviours, however unintentional and unconscious, have still allowed some systemic racial discrimination to exist. We cannot accept this - and we will change.
We are therefore applying even more effort and greater urgency to this task and have already initiated a number of actions some of which are described below.
We:
- have published an updated and expanded Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan
- have recommunicated all the channels open to staff for reporting incidents of discrimination, direct or indirect.
- have reached out to external experts who will work with senior leadership to develop a truly inclusive culture
- are improving the scope, quality and presentation of our quarterly diversity data
- are updating our onboarding and induction to ensure that it is clear we will not tolerate racism or any other form of discrimination
- are developing a mandatory learning programme for all staff that includes an exploration of unconscious bias, racism and wider issues of discrimination
- have committed to having diverse candidate pools for all senior appointments and to tracking the progress of women and BAME candidates through the stages of recruitment to better understand where the blocks to appointment are
- with the guidance of external ED&I experts, we will update our recruitment processes including reaching out to specialist recruitment agencies that will enable us to reach a more diverse candidate pool
- through mentoring and development opportunities, we will be giving specific encouragement and support to all groups under-represented at our leadership levels
We acknowledge and are deeply saddened by our lack of awareness about how many of our talented and committed colleagues have been enduring discrimination their whole lives. We are committed to eliminating racism from our organisation.
Change will not happen overnight, which means that we must act - and act quickly. We know we will not get everything right, but we will try, and we will learn. The actions we are taking over the coming months will ensure we have inclusive policies and practices, that everyone is aware of what racism and other forms of discrimination look like, and is confident to challenge it, and that we will see greater diversity in the leadership of our organisation.
We will not rest until World Vision UK has ensured that all forms of racial discrimination are completely absent from our organisation.
"There shouldn't be any discrimination. We should all get the same rights."
- Sapna, 16 years old, India
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
- Galatians 3:28
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