All the people at the Including diversity conference do believe that diversity makes their organization and the rest of the world better, that’s a good start. Our work now is to see that the necessary steps are being taken to really include diversity.
During the weekend we’ve learned that everyone is winning by promote and include diversity with more motivation, better work environment and better ideas. And to take the nice declarations and make them to practice everywhere we can make a change.
The same day as the conference ended, right wing extremists and police was beating the participants of the pride parade in Moscow who where demanding equal rights in Russia. This shows that the struggle for equality and diversity is important and something we need to work with.
We need to be the change we want to see, in our organizations, all sorts of discrimination only should appear in our common history. It’s a matter of will and focus from all of us. We can’t change somebody else before we changed ourselves. What that means is different from person to person.
I’ve learned very much during the weekend, when I meet people from all over the world, when I participated in both formal and informal discussion. And I’m going to do everything in my power to include diversity.
I also urge everyone of you to change the rest of the world, ask questions to the political and economical leaders, report to the media if you see discrimination, support people working with the issue and much more.
On July 7th my organization are opening a web based magazine, TellUs, where we are going to publish the stories from change makers all over the world who are working to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. I want to invite all the participants of this conference to write stories how you are working to include diversity, and we will spread your ideas and work around the world. If you’re interested, please contact me!
If we succeed to include diversity for real, then everybody is a winner! See you next year, at the conference or at the blog.
Jonas Eriksson
jonas@tellusmagazine.org
