Please don’t tell the Government that I spent three hours IN my working day in an event on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. For those of you who may be alarmed by this admission, please be assured that no productivity was harmed in my taking part in this event – my first workshop of the day ‘in’ Australia was at 5.30am, and I’m typing this post outside core working hours (in other words I made up the hours in my own time, knowing I was fortunate to have that flexibility).

I am so proud to be part of the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) which has EDI as one of its three core priorities. I’m still learning and looking to improve my ability to be consciously competent concerning EDI. Today was a great example of an opportunity made possible by the Universities Transport Study Group. Thank you to our organisers Margaret Bell CBE FICE, Hon FIHE, FCIHT CMILT, Elena Alyavina and Alexandros Nikitas; and Jennie Martin MBE FCILT and Vi Parker – I learnt a lot from your contributions and from other participants.

Here are some learning insights I took from today’s event:

💙 The book ‘Not So Black And White’ by Kenan Malik is worth looking up

💙 Improvement starts with ourselves – ‘audit yourself’

💙 Repeatedly highlighting good clear examples help keep EDI, and shortcomings in addressing it, in people’s consciousness

💙 Just because an organisation is improving its statistics on having a diverse workforce doesn’t mean it is creating an inclusive working environment

💙 ‘Gender affirmation’ is a more appropriate and inclusive term than ‘Gender reassignment’

💙 1.5% of people identified as lesbian , gay or bisexual in the 2021 census

💙 ‘Neurodiverse’ applies to the whole population, people who have a diagnosis (e.g. autistic) are ‘neurodivergent’ (as opposed to neurotypical)

💙 Remember at the start of the event that ‘welcome everyone’ or ‘welcome folks’ is a good inclusive form of words

💙 British Sign Language has different accents/dialects in different parts of the country

💙 The #MyNameIs campaign from Race Equality Matters aims to highlight names, and the importance of pronouncing them correctly

💙 Put your energy into changing the people who can be changed

💙 Newcastle University has an EDI toolkit (https://lnkd.in/ePFjBMby) which it was suggested may be widely popular and used….by the people who don’t need to be using it!

There was much more besides explored in the event. My slides are below – I must admit I’ve used and shared them before though with a little update at the front as well for this event. They set out my own learning journey – especially during the period of the pandemic when there was time for introspection, and when there were shocking events focusing the mind.

#equalitydiversityinclusion

Dr Evangelia PantelakiFiona CrawfordKris BeuretGuilhermina TorraoRansford A. AcheampongSamantha JamsonLucy JonesDilum Dissanayake