The final Diversity@work event took place on May 28th.

56 participants from 10 European countries and institutions took part in the event through TEAMS, after a welcoming message by Karim Merali, CEO of the Aga Khan Foundation and Anu Ritz, in charge of the Diversity Charters Platform at the European commission.

The project was developed with the aim of supporting the European Union Diversity Charters to promote diversity, non-discrimination and equal opportunities in the workplace.

It also aimed to develop practical tools to achieve the Charters’ objectives and attract new signatories.

The project was leaded by the Aga Khan Foundation (Portugal) together with partners from the Estonian Human Rights Centre (Estonia), Equality Strategies (Ireland), and Diversity Charters from Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Spain and Portugal (APPDI).

The main focus of this event was to celebrate the coming end of the project and to disseminate the products created. Among them are a Blended Learning Course on Diversity & Inclusion, along with the respective facilitators Guide, and a Charter Implementation Toolkit (available soon). A facilitators training to be held in June was also announced, with the aim to increase the confidence level of D&I professionals to use the Blended Learning course.

During the meeting, and in order to increase the interaction of the participants, a chat room was created simultaneously on the TEAMS platform, with questions and answers to collect opinions and also to clarify doubts. In addition, and in order to interact more with the participants and get information about the level of diversity they experienced, questions were asked to the participants through the Slido platform.

At the event, the main achievements, results and feedback gathered during the testing phase were presented by the partners.

Image 1: Kelly Grossthal from Estonian Huma Rights centre, partner of the project

This was followed by an overview of current measures and an outlook for future actions, and explanations were given on how to take advantage of the blended learning course in the future. This free course (hosted at AKF´s Blended Learning Platform) Diversity and Inclusion | AKF Blended Learning (akdn.net), will be available upon request to all those that wish to implement it autonomously in their organizations.

Image 2: Slide presented about “how to use the Course” in each organisation

An overview of the Evaluation of the project was provided by Claudia Pedra from Stone Soup and two testimonials were presented by Susana Colaço from Altice Portugal and Piret Kask from Circkle K Estonia. Both organisations have tested the course and plan to use it further within their organisations.

During the event, the “Instantâneos” theater group had several performances with a humorous challenge, to soften the atmosphere and stimulate the audience’s mind. Participants were asked to suggest “Machines for Inclusion” that could be invented and participants got to know their inventors in interactive interviews.

Image 3: Marco from the “Instantâneos” Theater group presenting another innovative invention

This project reached so far more than 2500 people in 10 different countries, from all types of organisations and will continue to foster D&I and the Diversity Charters along time with its products. To know more, get in touch!