Inclusion rocks! Inclusion is key to happiness. Most of us have experienced exclusion at some time in our lives. Just imagine if that was the norm, if you were routinely left out. How would you feel? What would you have to live for? Why get up in the morning?
Now is the time to stop paying lip service to EDI. Or DEI across the pond.
We’ve kicked the can down the road for way too long. We’ve offered the petty cash, the crumbs off our table, the hand outs, the benefits. People largely survive. Rarely do they thrive.
We raise funds for charity (not to belittle that every little does help), but to quote Isabel Allende ‘This is to assuage our conscience darling. But it doesn’t help the poor. They don’t need charity, they need justice’. Such a great truism.
When will society wake up and realise that people who present as different are a bonus! My life and that of
Everybody wants to feel that they belong
thousands of others is hugely enhanced and impacted by Jen and all involved in the dynamic charity DanceSyndrome where the leaders have learning disabilities.
Every person is a human being. We all matter. We all have the same human needs. We seek friendship, opportunity and fulfilment. Just like you and just like me, people prefer to be fit and healthy in body and mind, but sometimes that’s just not possible.
Why don’t we naturally embrace inclusion? Why do we need inclusion awareness?
Why don’t we value the traits and characteristics of those who are invariably marginalised?
All too often talents remain hidden from view, innovative and creative minds are squandered, ignored, and dismissed. Why?
So here’s a radical idea. Just imagine if every business decided that 1 in 100 of its employees didn’t need to be productive when measured against normal parameters of productivity, meaning that the remaining 99% still are. That 1% could spread joy, happiness, creativity, compassion, energy and smiles amongst the 99%. Might it even be that the 99% increase their productivity resulting in increased overall profitability?
Are you brave enough to try it? Will you put your head above the parapet and embrace inclusion in a practical pragmatic way. Will you join me in demonstrating that every person matters?
Or maybe an industrial estate would like to join forces and share the cost of paying a living wage to people to light up their lives on a regular basis affording them opportunities to be properly valued and paid members of the human race.
If you work with DanceSyndrome enhanced joie de vivre is guaranteed!
Eve and Peter co-lead the Inclusion in Action workshop for FONS
DanceSyndrome, amongst other things, offers Inclusion Awareness Training, which it’s currently delivering up and down the length and breadth of the UK to NHS Inpatient Mental Health Ward Managers through the national charity FONS (Foundation of Nursing Studies). Like every other product from DanceSyndrome, this can be tailored to your needs offering bespoke training pertinent to your employees, helping everyone be more creative, confident and productive. You’d be amazed at the impact people usually outside the system can have when afforded the time of day!
Now is the time to do things differently and really make a difference to everyone in our society.
