CISV educates and inspires action for a more just and peaceful world. To achieve this, CISV celebrates inclusivity and diversity across the world, and within our own organisation.
However, in June 2021, in the midst of worldwide Black Lives Matter protests, CISV as an organisation reflected on its processes to guarantee that it is accessible, diverse and inclusive, and found that there were areas in which CISV GB could make significant improvements.
Since then, some diversity initiatives have been developed by a national diversity and inclusion team. T his report sets out:
What we have achieved and recognise where we can improve The results from our 2022 diversity and inclusion survey Our goals for 2023
In this report we are fully transparent about our goals, achievements, and shortfalls, in the hope that our openness encourages frank and useful discussion on the best way forward.
A key part of reviewing our diversity and inclusion initiatives, and effectively developing and implementing future strategies, is to monitor participation in our organisation.
Therefore in 2022, we conducted our second annual survey to understand the demographics of CISV GB participants, staff and leaders attending programmes. Although we hoped to capture every person (participant, staff, leader and JC) who attended a CISV programme between September 2021 to August 2022, we received 77 responses out of a possible 172 (a response rate of 45%). We are aware that more data would provide more representative results. Next year we aim for a response rate of 60% or over.
To conduct our survey we sent out a google forms link to chapters. The survey asked about household income, educational background, religion, ethnicity, and disability.
To assist data interpretation, we have benchmarked our findings with data on the UK population published by the Office for National Statistics.
We recognise that it can be complicated to collect data that measures protected characteristics across the whole of CISV GB. There are parts of the survey that we want to improve for next year. As a team, we have reflected on the changes we can make to next year's survey to make sure the data we collect is as representative and accurate as possible.
If you do have any suggestions about how best to collect, analyse or present data then please do feel free to get in touch with our team at diversity@gb.cisv.org. We’re always welcome to hear your suggestions, no matter how big or small!
Over the past year, we have pursued a multitude of diversity initiatives. A key
achievements happen was the recruitment of three more members to the national diversity and inclusion team, taking us to a team of five.
The national bursary scheme was established to fully or partially fund the programme places of young people who otherwise would struggle to afford their fees (and other payments such as spending money).
We launched a fundraising campaign through GoFundMe to kickstart this scheme. Using this enabled us to accept donations from those who wished to contribute and then build a collective pot of funding that could be accessed by the various chapters when they have a young person eligible for support.
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Result:
Following six months of fundraising, we raised £1400. Subsequently, this money was used to partially fund three young people’s programme places, and fully fund one young person.
Next year: We will consider additional methods of fundraising that would allow the scheme to receive more sustainable and direct funding to support this scheme. Various areas we are exploring grant applications and optional donation requests at the point of programme fee payment.
We aim to collaborate more with chapters to encourage their use of the scheme and push for fundraising within their branches.
We delivered a diversity and inclusion training session at this year’s leadership training weekend. The session aimed to ensure that considerations of diversity and inclusion are part of a participant’s, leader’s or staff team’s standard preparation before attending a programme.
In the training, we discussed different scenarios and how we can best handle them to make sure a CISV camp is as inclusive and accessible as possible.
Further, we have run several training sessions at Junior Branch (JB) training and NJBF, which has given JB members the opportunity to brainstorm how we can work towards a more inclusive JB. One area discussed was how we could aid and help chapters facilitate more diverse recruitment strategies.
Result: Overall, we received positive feedback from the sessions. JB members feel motivated and prepared to work towards a more inclusive JB. We hope to build on these skills and motivation within JB over the course of this year.
Next year: We aim to deliver another training session at leadership training with a focus on expert-led guidance to create inclusive camps.
Also, we aim to collaborate with Local Junior Representatives (LJRs) to deliver a diversity and inclusion-themed JB session in every chapter. The session will aim to share the results of our survey with JBers and help them reflect on how JB could be more inclusive and diverse.
After speaking with local branches, we understood that many branches recruit by word of mouth or through the same schools each year. We aimed to encourage chapters to diversify their recruitment strategies to ensure more people can access the opportunities CISV offers.
We developed some resources and trained LJRs to help branches approach new schools. For example, we created a template of a letter to be used by chapters to reach out and build connections to new schools.
Some chapters are still recovering from the difficulties that came with Covid and/or struggling to recruit generally.
Chapters have also told us that it is difficult to enter new schools. Therefore, the uptake of new recruitment methods have not been as successful as we originally had hoped.
Next year:
We aim to support each chapter in pursuing one alternative new method to encourage more diverse recruitment. We also hope this will increase the volume of participants requiring support from the Bursary Scheme and enable a broader range of children to experience CISV.
in 2023, we're excited to work more closely with chapters and continue to work towards a more inclusive and diverse organisation.
Work more closely with each chapter to ensure the resources and projects being developed are as effective as possible.
Support each chapter to establish one new process of recruitment. Diversify from school recruitment if this is proving difficult.
Deliver another updated leadership training session that draws on more tangible guidance from CISV international on how to promote inclusivity and accessibility.
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Consider our external image on social media, this will help people consider the opportunities we offer within CISV GB.
Receive funding from a successful grant application. Trial the donation scheme to help fund the bursary scheme. Provide partial or fully funded programme places to four or more young people.
We started the national diversity and inclusion workforce nearly two years ago, with the ambition and drive to push through a genuine change in our organisation.
Looking forward, we hope that we can work more closely with chapters so they feel supported to implement more changes on a local level. Chapters are essential in creating a more diverse, inclusive and accessible CISV GB. It is only through working together will that tangible changes will arise.
While the executive board has been inundated with post-Covid survival measures, we are keen and excited to see our relationship develop further this year too. Most importantly, we'd like to thank everyone that we've worked with so far. We recognise that everyone is a volunteer, and we're so pleased to work alongside so many positive, motivated and wonderful people. We're very much looking forward to continuing our work into 2023!