Read the Equity Action Plan here as a pdf
An EasyRead version is available here
I’ve been told a few times now that the most important thing we can do in introducing this plan is to try to speak from the heart, to convey that it means something to us as an organisation, and as people.
This plan is the result of 18 months of discussions and thought. Much of this has been within the small CHWA team (there are currently six of us, mostly part-time); with our fantastic Board; and most recently with Rukhsana Jahangir, who has been working with us as a consultant specialising in equity and justice in the cultural sector. We’re so grateful to Rukhsana for her generosity and insight, and for spending many hours thinking through how we can communicate this plan in a way that feels real to those of you reading it.
But of course a thousand other conversations have fed into this too – in working groups for the Quality Framework, for example, where we ditched the word ‘inclusive’ in favour of ‘equitable’; listening to colleagues exhausted by supporting their staff in the face of the racist riots last summer; in the Museum Strategic Disability Network, witnessing both the progress and the frustrations of working to transform access and working conditions in museums; learning from our colleagues at QueerCircle as they have found ways to convey and live their solidarity with Palestine; learning from organisations struggling to respond to the Supreme Court ruling and care for trans and nonbinary friends and colleagues; learning from our colleagues in the Arts and Social Outcomes Network and the Artists Represent Recovery Network and the LENs and at Flourishing Lives, all in different ways seeking a more just space where lived experience can lead the conversation; holding onto advice from IncArts and Unlimited generously shared with the sector over the years; learning from all our partners and regional leads and regional champions and conference panels and so on and so on... as we all navigate this together. A particular thank you to London Arts and Health for offering a space for frank and open conversations about how best to move forward and to many others who have directly and generously encouraged or challenged us when it comes to working to make things more equitable – as they say, you know who you are.
If you read this plan, it might seem a bit dry – I suppose we are bumping into the limitations of language, planning and resources; in an ideal world we would have pictures and animations and podcasts and infographics, and I hope we will get there. But for now, the detailed text is our best attempt to make sure we are actually doing things that we believe will make a difference; and it’s important to say that this is not a cut-and-paste job, every word has been considered; and behind the words, our commitment to equity and justice is very real. Obviously there are times when we fail and we get it wrong, and quite often – and as I have said in other blogs, we usually get it wrong when we’re trying to do things fast. So there is a real imperative to work slowly – but this is banging up against both the sense of urgency in civil society generally - that familiar noise in the back of all our minds – and the need for an ambitious plan. We will see how it pans out. Some of what we’re describing in the plan is already standard practice for us, so we know we can do it; some of it is very new and we’re still thinking through how we'll manage it, but we’ll do our best - and we will keep talking about it on this site and in our reports.
To give it a bit of a shape, we are trying to think about this as three arenas: where we can be directly impactful (how we communicate, how we work with colleagues and so on), where we have influence (what can we do for and with our members), and where our job might be to step back and listen, and provide support when it’s asked for. We’ve thought a lot about ‘de-centreing’ the alliance and our work; and how we can position this alliance so that we are genuinely that – an alliance of interests that is just one part of a far broader movement for change.
I hope for those of you that do read this that it makes sense, and I also hope you feel you can contact us about it, to challenge or to encourage – we would always love to hear from you about this; we see this as a living document that will evolve over the next 22 months and beyond; and it will evolve because of your thoughts.