News
Planning for EQUALising the Workplace
May 2007
Valetta, the capital of Malta, was the venue for a recent meeting that fine
tuned an EQUAL Exchange Event to be held on the opposite edge of Europe. This
event called "EQUALising the Workplace - Diversity in Action" is scheduled to take
place in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 13 June 2007 and Malta was the last chance
to dot each i and cross each t in all the conference papers. It also provided an
opportunity for a number of EQUAL Development Partnerships to rehearse the
presentations that they will make during the event.
The concept of this European Mainstreaming Platform on
Diversity came from Northern Ireland's EQUAL Managing Authority working in close
cooperation with its counterparts in Latvia and also in Malta, hence the venue.
Then when it got to the stage of implementation and of planning a subsequent
EQUAL Policy Forum, they were joined by Flanders and Portugal. The background
behind the proposal was the need to share and promote the positive experiences
that have been gained during EQUAL in building on diversity. "Northern
Ireland now has equality legislation, which is unrivalled in Europe and perhaps
this is the only positive legacy of our recent community conflict and history of
sectarian discrimination," explains John Neill, the Head of the Managing
Authority. "However, legislation on its own is not enough. Changes have to be
made in the organisational cultures of firms and agencies and here, we are
hoping to learn from EQUAL approaches in other Member States." The five Member States driving the event believe that
as well as ensuring that people do not suffer discrimination on the grounds of
ethnic origin, disability, sex, age, sexual orientation and religion or belief,
recognising diversity
(see background paper) means
understanding how people's differences and similarities can be mobilised for the
benefits of the individual, the employing organisation and society as a whole.
The Exchange Event (see programme) will bring
together over 100 participants from 20 of the 25 EU Member States.
These include 59 Development Partnerships (DPs), 17 people from EQUAL Managing
Authorities (MAs) and 12 from National Support Structures. The three workshops
that will take up most of a very focused day will provide opportunities for a
valuable exchange of EQUAL good practice and for mutual learning but this is not
their main aim. The overriding objective of the Exchange Event is to prepare a
convincing case for presentation at the Policy Forum to be held, again in
Belfast, at the end of 2007. This Policy Forum will showcase the good practices
that are emerging from EQUAL to those individuals who are responsible for
regional and national employment, inclusion and integration policies, including
representatives of employers and trade unions, and attempt to engage their
interest in furthering these successful approaches. Thus, the
Workshop sessions should result in a series of
clear messages about how EQUAL has raised the level of empowerment of many of
its beneficiaries, encouraged employers to add a diversity dimension to their
Recruitment and HRD policies and helped bridge-builders such as social security
bodies, employment services, careers agencies, training providers to
improve their services for the hardest to reach groupings.
Empowerment is one of the building blocks or
basic
principles of EQUAL and it will be a cross-cutting theme during the event
as:
- the first workshop "Empowerment of vulnerable groups" will
focus on the "individual" aspect meaning that a person has to be strong enough
to make his/her own decisions on life and his or her own process of integration;
- the second Workshop "Working with Employers" points up the
fact that for employers it is also important to provide opportunities for
employees to take responsibility for their work, as this will produce more
commitment and better results; and finally
- the third Workshop "Building the bridges" will consider the
"environmental" aspect, as organisations involved in vocational and
social (re)-integration
have to at least respect, if not stimulate and strengthen, the individual's
empowerment to make sure that he or she can really take charge of the
integration process.
Waterfront Hall in Belfast
The top floor of the Maltese Government's Planning and Priorities
Coordination Division was the stage on which the six DPs made the initial
presentations of their activities. They are now polishing up their acts in the
light of the constructive comments from the audience of representatives of
Member States in Malta before appearing at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. Two of these six DPs will kick start each of the three
Workshops, but the whole idea is that all of the other DPs will also have the
chance during the Workshops to make short and succinct contributions about their
successes in promoting diversity and empowerment.
So, what did the DPs think of their experience in Malta? The representatives
of the local
Headstart DP, Tanya Borg Cardona and Audrey Ellul, appreciated the chance to
hear about so many different solutions to similar problems and believed that the
comments that they received would really improve the quality of the presentation
that they could make in Belfast. Maris Taube,
from Latvia, felt that the meeting in Malta made everyone aware of the
differences and similarities between the Member States involved and of the
challenge of creating outcomes which were generally applicable, from a variety
of different approaches.
In terms of the hopes for Belfast, Maria Nunes from the Portuguese MA
expected that "The exchange event and the Policy Forum should
contribute to the long-lasting inclusion of empowerment principles in ESF
Programmes and I hope that it can persuade those in positions of authority to
relinquish some of their power and establish a better, fairer exchange of
views." Louis Vervloet from the
Belgian Flemish MA was more pragmatic. "I would be very happy if the
exchange event produced two policy recommendations that would change the real
life situation of the more disadvantaged target groups and also provided the
practical instruments for bringing about such changes."
Thus, producing realistic approaches and policy messages is the challenge
that will face the delegates at the Exchange Event in June. These will then be
transmitted to the Policy Forum which will bring together 250-270 potential
users of EQUAL results and policy makers to discuss strategic recommendations
that can inform the implementation of the 2007-2013 ESF programmes and regional,
national and EU employment, anti-discrimination and inclusion policies in the
area of employment and employer relations.
Background paper 
Programme
Workshop themes and issues
Top
