PinkNews Awards 2018: Here are the nominees for Third Sector Equality
The Third Sector Equality Award, sponsored by Amazon, seeks to highlight the pioneering work of LGBT networks and diversity, within third sector organisations.
Lat year Bernardo’s took home the Award for Third SectorEquality.
Below are those who made the shortlist at this year’s awards:
Amnesty International
(Amnesty International)
Internally, Amnesty maintains a robust equality and diversity policy and is equally robust in its enforcement.
Its Equalities and Diversity working group ensures that all ‘minority’ voices are represented, and it trains staff as bullying and harassment advisors, to ensure strong peer support should it be needed. All staff are also undergoing unconscious bias training.
Within the Third Sector, Amnesty leads in terms of defending the human rights of LGBT people across the world. As a long term supporter of Prides across the world, as well as defending LGBT people in Chechnya and in other hostile regions, Amnesty remains focused on this issue.
It has ongoing campaigns on LGBT rights in Russia, Turkey, Taiwan, and Japan, as well as intersex and trans campaigns in the UK and the rest of Europe. In particular, Amnesty’s trans activism has been prominent this year, amplifying the voices of such trans defenders as Sakris Kupila in Finland.
Amnesty’s support has helped secured meetings at the Finnish embassy in the UK, and with government officials in Finland – as a result of Amnesty’s work, Sakris states that he no longer considers himself ‘at risk’.
Read more here.
National Trust
(National Trust)
In the Third Sector, the National Trust has led LGBT heritage projects on a national scale.
In May 2018, the National Trust held an international conference in Birmingham to explore how heritage organisations can meaningfully engage diverse audiences in debates around LGBT history and culture. This will allow the lessons learnt from the National Trust’s efforts to spread internationally.
The Trust has also initiated new and long-term partnerships as a result of its efforts, with the National Archives, National Portrait Gallery, and University of Leicester.
Find out more here.
St Mungo’s
(St Mungo’s)
Inclusion is core to St Mungo’s mission as a homeless charity. Internally, St Mungo’s is committed to diverse recruitment and one of its core competencies for all new postings is to actively promote inclusion.
The results of St Mungo’s internal LGBT work are clear to see – people leaving the organisation show no indication of sexuality being a barrier within the organisation, and LGBT staff show the highest level of satisfaction with their job compared to the rest of the workforce, at 77 percent.
In recognition of St Mungo’s contribution to the Third Sector, the organisation has presented at the Stonewall conference in 2016 and 17. Several of the executive team members are visible LGBT/ally role models and are role models within the sector too.
Discover more here.
Victim Support
(Victim Suport)
Victim Support has an LGBT network for its employees that runs a number of activities.
It runs its own awareness events, so far focusing on bi and trans awareness, as well as LGBT mental health. It has also run intersectional events on being BAME and LGBT.
Victim Support also promotes events around LGBT History Month, Pride, International Day Against Homophobic Bullying and Trans Day of Rememberance. Victim Support has an Allies network, provides a range of LGBT merchandise for its staff, and has mandatory diversity and inclusion training for staff.
Its ‘Coming Out Initiative’ is a section of the intranet where employees can share their experiences of coming out, and there is also an LGBT role models page within the intranet that has a range of LGBT role models that include older, BAME, and trans LGBT role models.
Victim Support has led the sector within the Third Sector, being a Stonewall Top 100 Employer since 2010, and the top charity for the last 3 years.
Read more here.
The PinkNews Awards is supported by Lloyds Banking Group.
