RECOGNISING IDENTITIES, CHALLENGING STEREOTYPES AT DIVERSITY HUB

An afternoon well spent in a workshop at Diversity Hub, sharing their training on issues of identity and stereotypes: recognising the former, challenging the latter. Apparently, I'd booked on to this weeks - if not months - ago. Thanks to Bill Malley for reminding me about it when we met for one of our occasional working breakfasts this morning!

There are 15 attendees, most of us employed or volunteering in roles where we engage with such matters on a daily basis. We're at varying levels of development, experience and knowledge and we respond differently to the content of the session. The notion that we as individuals, as members of communities - and that those communities themselves - are all made up of a bundle of different identities isn't new to me, nor is it something I find uncomfortable to acknowledge and live with. That's not necessarily the case with everyone though - which leads to some strongly felt contributions going into the pot this afternoon.

Given the variety of people taking part, I guess the topic is pitched about right. Personally, I'd like such acknowledgement to go further, and consider the competing, even contradictory positions that can co-exist within each of us, that vie for dominance and contest the right to expression. I'm reminded of two sources that I've been considering recently on this very subject:
 

From Michelle de Montaigne's Self-Portrait (published 1580):

All contradiction may be found in me by some twist and by some fashion. Bashful, insolent, chaste, lascivious; talkative, taciturn; tough, delicate; clever, stupid; surly, affable; lying, truthful; learned, ignorant; liberal, miserly and prodigal; all this I see in myself to some extent according to how I turn; and whoever really studies himself rally attentively finds in himself, yes, even in his judgment, this gyration and discord. I have nothing to say about myself, absolutely, simply, and solidly, without confusion and without mixture or in one word.… We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game. At times we are as different from ourselves as we are from others.

From Walt Whitman's Song of Myself (published 1855) section 51:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well, then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

On a lighter note, I can't help but pipe up in the session to say that I feel we talk about plenty of tough, gritty, scarred “survivor” aspects of identity, but we never do enough (sometimes, never do anything) to celebrate what I like to think of as the “sparkly” or “twinkly” things about ourselves, the more light, fluffy, joyous parts to our identities that even our closest friends, colleagues and co-workers might never suspect. I am sure you have a few of these about you, faithful reader – I know I do!

MEN AND MENTAL HEALTH

A meeting this evening, long in the planning, at Diversity Hub, Churchgate, on the topic, "Men and Mental Health".

This follows on from a number of "Men as Leaders" workshops (which kicked off with a first meeting in the bowels of Leicester Adult Education College on International Women's Day, 8 March 2012 - see blog post for that day). Some of the men who were at that meeting are here for this one.

Like the meeting in March, this one is keyed to an international commemorative event: this is World Mental Health Week.

Men tend not to be very at addressing their health needs - mental health being no different.

Professionally, I'm often involved in activities, projects and schemes associated with taboos of one sort or another among the faith and cultural communities: domestic violence, forced marriage, organ donation - you name it. So it's surprising (even refreshing and stimulating) to realise that this evening I'm a member of a community - white British males of a certain age - for whom, by and large, their mental health is a taboo subject.

And accordingly, it took me blooming ages to do this blog post; writing and rewriting it until all it appears as is this cut down version of something that had pretensions to be more insightful.

MEN AS LEADERS ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Diversity Hub is running its larger official International Women's Day event, "Women as Leaders" for women at its Churchgate premises, while half a dozen men meet in their alternative session here in the bowels of Leicester Adult Education College.

You could hardly imagine six more right-on chaps taking part in this (and take that in the most positive light please, faithful reader). While I'm not writing any of this with irony and we're not meeting ironically, still we can't help acknowledge the irony of the situation. There's a frisson of transgressiveness about it. We start off rather self-conscious and self-aware if anything we say could be thought of as condescending or patronising - even though there are no women here to hear us. Still, at the start there is the feeling of looking over our shoulders (that wasn't just me, was it?)

Here are a few of the topics and themes we touched on:

• Collaboration with women as leaders
• How to encourage men to shut up and clear space for women to speak?
• Men as formal leaders, facilitators, managers of meetings
• Difference between leadership styles of men and women in business, education, politics
• Results of men and women adopting typical traits of each other - does that make for a more balanced style?
• Appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace
• Cultural norms (regarding body language, deference, eye contact, physical contact) that amplify, cut across, subvert gender relations
• How we model kinds of male and female leadership to our children
• Rising above and beyond the blame culture, to allow situations where men and women can work together
• Our ideas of what we can do as men - by ourselves, with other men, with women - are things we've mostly picked up from others, not thought through entirely for ourselves
• Treating people as being all the same is not the same as treating them as equals
• To be a leader, one needs followers
• Can one have followers without knowing it?
• Can one be a leader without knowing it?

DIVERSITY HUB

At Diversity Hub this afternoon, for a meeting to discuss them making progress with their online presence. What starts as being focused purely on their Facebook page extends to include a wider social media strategy encompassing Twitter, blogging and (maybe) Flickr. I come with Ian Davies and Chris Florance and we stay on for an hour or so after the meeting, to help set up some of these accounts.

LEICESTER COLLEGE DIVERSITY FAIR: DAY 1

At Leicester College, Freemen's Park Campus, for its Diversity Fair, which takes place in the college's annual Respect Week. Leicester College has three campuses dotted around the city centre. We'll be doing something similar tomorrow at Abbey Park Campus.

Right up until first thing this morning, I don't actually know if the Council of Faiths is taking part, if we were just to provide an exhibition or to present a workshop. Vinod Chudasama (Inclusion Cordinator, Student Services) is always the organising force behind events such as this, but he's been uncharacteristically quiet this past couple of weeks. I call his mobile bang on nine this morning, but it goes straight to voicemail. I leave a message saying that I'm coming anyway and that I'm sure space can be found to display one of our banners and a small tabletop display of some leaflets, boomarks, stickers and my laptop (running a slideshow).

When I arrive at Freemen's Park campus, I'm shocked to hear that Vinod has been unwell for several weeks and is currently in hospital. I, his friends at Leicester Council of Faiths and everyone who appreciates his work in championing equality and diversity at the college wish him well and hope for his speedy recovery.

Our banner looks good (I think it always does, no matter the setting or company it's in) but the tabletop looks a wee bit bare for my liking.

The first person who approaches me to talk is a member of the college staff who tells me that she's a descendant of John Bunyan, author of "Pilgrim's Progress". She tells me that she's not read it - yet. I have, as part of my degree with the Open University and it made a strong impression on me, which still lingers, some twenty years later.

Other participants in the Diversity Fair today include:

• Amida Trust: which is both a dedicated Pureland Buddhist Sangha and also a wide and creative network of spiritually inclined ordinary people from many orientations
• Catch 22: a national charity that works with young people who find themselves in difficult situations
• Diversity Hub: trainers in diversity, equalities, leadership, conflict resolution, team building and anti-bullying work with young people and adults
• Jasmine House: which provides free confidential support and information for women and girls who have experienced any form of sexual violence at any time in their lives
• Leicester College Student Union
• Leicestershire and Leicester City Multi Agency Travellers Unit: soon to be involved in the launch of "GATE": Gypsy and Traveller Equality
• Refugee Action: which provides a range of services for asylum seekers, refugees and other agencies working with asylum seekers in the Leicester area
• St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society: specifically promoting their Interfaith Youth Hub
• Vista: an independent charity that provides services for blind and partially sighted people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland of whom there are nearly 6,000 recipients

I have interesting conversations with students and staff, who take some of our materials. Similarly, pleasant conversation with some of the other folk who have come to promote their services today. Oh and I can't close this entry without commending the Freemen's Park catering services on their blackcurrant crumble and custard, which topped off a very nice lunch.