Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Learning Journey – Ashoka
The deadline to register is November 21st, 2022
Ashoka is an international citizen-sector organization whose mission is to build an Everyone a Changemaker World™ . An Everyone a Changemaker World™ is one that responds quickly and effectively to social challenges, and where each individual has the freedom, confidence and societal support to address any social problem and self identify as a driver of change. Ashoka is the world’s leading community of over 3,500 social entrepreneurs. We champion the most important new social change ideas and support the innovators behind them by helping them get started, grow, collaborate and reshape whole systems.
We are thrilled to launch our brand-new online course, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Learning Journey, where we share our learnings to enrich your skills on how to make change making open to everybody: more diverse, inclusive, and equitable.
Join this facilitated online learning journey to unlearn unconscious biases, perspectives, and narratives and to relearn by gaining knowledge and testing skills based on the specific expertise provided by our guest speakers.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion(DEI) Learning Journey
Valuing diversity and creating the space where all are seen, respected, and included is central to our core work of building an Everyone a Changemaker world. In fact, the ‘everyone’ in Everyone a Changemaker is not achievable without a deliberate commitment to inclusion, and that begins with Ashoka itself as we aspire to be the welcoming home of changemakers.
What is this experience all about?
Valuing diversity and creating the space where all are seen, respected, and included is central to our core work of building an Everyone a Changemaker world. In fact, the ‘everyone’ in Everyone a Changemaker is not achievable without a deliberate commitment to inclusion, and that begins with Ashoka itself as we aspire to be the welcoming home of changemakers.
As we, as an organization, are on a learning journey ourselves, we invite you to join us in a safe and brave space where we can all learn from Ashoka Fellows and other community members: experts in DEI area.
Ashoka Fellowship Europe Program co-creating with Ashoka DEI Global Initiative are thrilled to launch our brand new experience, DEI Learning Journey, where we share our learnings and enrich your skills on how to make changemaking open to everybody: more diverse, inclusive and equitable.
We believe that without a robust emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion, changemaking risks becoming a skillset and mindset reserved for the privileged few — contributing to a new inequality (much like the digital divide) between those who have time and space and support to be changemakers and those who do not.
In our brand new experience journey, we offer space for self-reflection on unconscious bias, power dynamics, leadership and strategies for inclusion especially focused on intersectionality.
Who Can Apply?
- Ashoka Fellows
- Ashoka Fellow Organization Staff Member
- Ashoka Staff
- Ashoka Young Changemakers
- Corporate or Institutional Partner of Ashoka
- Part of an affiliated Ashoka Program or Partnership
- Ashoka Support Network (ASN) members
Module Timeline
November 2022- May 2023 | facilitated online sessions | We strongly encourage taking part in the first 3 sessions, as they are fundamental for the understanding of the whole area.
Each session will be co-created and facilitated with a Fellow/member of Ashoka community.
The module is divided into three sections:
- Introduction to DEI: the reflection on the importance of DEI in systems change, covering the fundamental definitions of DEI, learning about unconscious bias and power structures that influence our work. (December 22/ February 23)
- Inclusive leadership: the reflection on the role of the leader and ingredients for building inclusive and equitable spaces, including the impact of dominant culture, looking at empathy as imperative for DEI. (February/March 23)
- Intersectionality and its impact on the way we work: learn the strategies for building inclusion and equity that emerge from our community, with focus on intersectionality (more than one identity facing systemic exclusion) (April/May 23)
Each phase will consist of three learning sessions and one reflection session.
We strongly encourage taking part in the first 3 sessions, as they are fundamental for the understanding of the whole area.
Participants who attend at least 9 sessions will receive an acknowledgement of participation in the learning module.
Session 1: December 8th | 4-6.30pm CET| Why do we need Diversity Equity and Inclusion to build Everyone a Changemaker world? | Guest: Lorena Garcia Duran, Ashoka DEI Global Leader
Stay tuned for other sessions!
Why You Should Apply?
Building a truly diverse, inclusive, and equitable organization requires all (primarily but not exclusively- those who hold most of the power) to actively engage in the never-ending journey of eliminating our own discriminatory biases (conscious and unconscious) and of becoming aware of our power and privilege so that we can learn how to truly see, trust and welcome all of those who are different from us.
We will base all of our session on providing space for those three aspects of DEI transformation:
- unlearning the unconscious biases, perspectives and narratives that had impact on how we’ve perceived the world around us,
- relearning by gaining knowledge and testing skills based on the specific expertise provided by our guest speakers,
- practicing by gaining inspiration on specific best practices and planning for implementation.
