Working towards racial equity : From conversation to action
The Australian Intercultural Society is proud to have partnered with the Equal Employment Opportunity Network to bring the 7th anti-racism summit titled “Working towards racial equity : From conversation to action”. The conversation was between 2 champions in the racial equity space – Dr Teresa De Fazio and Shankar Kasnyathan.
EEON President Rana Ebrahimi welcomed the audience to RMIT’s premise and mentioned this was the last program for the year. She thanked the participants who joined online to hear the conversation for their continuing support and was looking forward to hearing from our speakers.
Teresa set the scene by describing how things have come so far from the time she got involved in this space. She recalls her early working days to be more basic as there was no D&I framework for her conversations with HR as they were primarily concerned about the general wellbeing of the employees. She knew more needed to be done to be mindful of the challenges that people from a diverse background faced in the workplace, hearing both brazen overt racism to the subtle ones triggered her interest to be involved in education. Shankar commented on the many roles he undertook in his employment journey and how it caused him to step into this space. He believes all employers should be providing a safe space for people of all walks of life to feel comfortable working in the role they have been given and the space they hold. He recalled attending an LGA CEO’s forum where all the leaders were white but boasted of having a diversified workforce to finally admit there was no one of diversity in important decision making. He stressed the importance of having a strong will and drive to change the composition of the workforce and the leadership team to reflect the customers they serve.
The program concluded with Ahmet thanking the speakers, EEON and RMIT for making the event informative. The AIS looks forward to continuing the relationship with EEON to bring this important and courageous conversations to make us think and act in the appropriate manner.
