Equality 2007
Overview
Diversiton has grown over recent years to benefit employers and employees alike by encouraging a deepening understanding of what equality and inclusion really mean.
Our work in companies and organisations increasingly takes account of the impact of immigration and rapidly changing demographics, resulting in a more ‘global’ workplace.
Throughout 2007 Diversiton will be exploring our greatest equality challenge, that of living in a world where 850 million people go to bed hungry every night and one in ten children never sees her third birthday. We will look at the challenge of addressing poverty as part of our wider equality and inclusion work.
Consultation
We welcome your views, thoughts and ideas. Please contact me des@diversiton.com
Here are just a few questions you might wish to consider or respond to …..…
- How does hunger relate to equality?
- Should the Single Equality Act address hunger?
- The new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) will ‘champion equality, diversity, and human rights as defining values of our society, encouraging all our institutions to operate for the benefit of every individual.’ What should the role of the CEHR be in respect of hunger and starvation?
- 2007 has been designated the "European Year of Equal Opportunities for All". ‘This initiative aims to raise awareness of the benefits of a just, cohesive society where there is equality of opportunity for all.’ How does this relate to those outside of Europe?
- Is working with those in need just a charitable activity or can supporting children who are hungry benefit our staff or improve our profitability?
- Starvation and hunger aren’t really relevant to our organisation, are they?
- Diversity, equality, citizenship and inclusion – how is your organisation positioning itself?
Our aim is to gather responses by the 31st January 2007 and then to produce a consultation paper for wider consideration.
Food for thought…
- 850 million people are desperately hungry and malnourished in our world; 300 million of them children, whilst 1.1 billion or more of us eat excessively.
- In the impoverished nations of the world, 1 in 10 children dies before her third birthday.
- Globally a billion people live without clean water.
- Every day 30,000 people die of starvation. That’s one every 3 seconds.
- If we provided a good nutritious lunch every day for every child in the planet, we would transform life on our planet.
- The global AIDS pandemic has intensified world hunger - farmers in Africa are dying or too ill to plant food. Many regions in Africa are left with only the old and the young. By 2020 it is estimated that one-fifth of the agricultural labour force in Southern Africa will be lost. Aids is both a cause and a consequence of hunger.
- In a world of astonishing scientific, technical and economic capability, Africa practises primitive farming methods.
Kenya
Pauline McCabe was on a recent trip to Africa. Here are three of her stories.
- A young boy very sick with malaria stood before me. He was, I would guess, around 14 years of age. It was a blisteringly hot day and he had walked for hours, by himself, to get to the place deep in the Bush where our clinic was held. He had a rampant temperature and my job was to cool him down. I poured a tumbler of water from the supply on our Land rover and handed it to him. He took a number of gulps until his eyes met mine over the glass and he noticed the perspiration dripping down my face because I was so unused to the high temperature. Then that boy, who was burning up and had made his journey without water, lifted the glass from his lips and stretched out his thin arm to offer it to me.
- In the bowels of the slums of Nairobi was an elderly nun in a tiny hut with a small stove. Each morning she made porridge and each evening she made soup. Children with both parents or their remaining parent dying of AIDS, would arrive each with a bowl to collect the results of her cooking. Then they would hurry back to their tiny makeshift huts and their grateful, dying parents to eat this food that kept them alive. I learnt that week in week out, year in, year out, that food was quietly paid for by an Asian businessman who was known to no one but the nun.
- The day before I returned to Northern Ireland Sister Sylvia, who I was told should have died years ago from cancer, took me to a bare hut where a young widow lay dying. Her three year old son sat on an upturned box and watched her. Minutes later her eight year old daughter and ten year old son arrived back with scraps of food they had found in a bin. The mother had one last wish and she spoke to Sylvia in her native tongue. Knowing that, after her death, her youngsters would join the thousands of other uncared for toddlers and children roaming the streets of the slums, she wanted to get them to her mother. Her mother lived with her tribe three miles away. The two women made their plans and Sister Sylvia asked me to provide the bus fare that they would need. I remember it being equivalent to around one penny. The next morning whilst the slums were sleeping and the narrow roads empty, Sister Sylvia and the young son lovingly put an arm round each of their necks and carried and dragged the mother to the bus stop for the short journey to piece of mind. Thirty six hours later, she died.
Thanks
Finally, as a non profit making body we are grateful for the recognition of our work to date through awards, government funding and increasing sponsorship. We are particularly delighted to have the active support of so many leading organisations across so many sectors in the 2007 Diversity Calendar. A huge 'thank-you' to each one. Our hope is that others will follow the lead taken by this year’s sponsors and supporters and partner us in our ongoing work.
  
If you’d like to be kept up to date on latest news and developments on the Equality2007 initiative or would like to share your views or ideas then we would be happy to add you to our consultation list. Please email des@diversiton.com
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