Statement:
The Chaldean Cultural Center (CCC), including its Board of Directors, Executive Director, Staff, and Volunteers, commit to practicing inclusion, equity, and respect of diversity as core principles intricately connected to our success so that we may share our cultural history with every person seeking to expand their educational experiences.
To provide informed, authentic leadership for cultural equity, the CCC strives to:
- See diversity, inclusion, and equity as connected to our mission and critical to ensure the well-being of our staff, board members, and the communities we serve.
- Acknowledge and dismantle any inequities within our policies, systems, programs, and services and continually update and report organization progress.
- Explore potential underlying, unquestioned assumptions that interfere with inclusiveness.
- Advocate for and support board-level thinking about how systemic inequities impact our organization’s work, and how best to address that in a way that is consistent with our mission.
- Help to challenge assumptions about what it takes to be a strong leader at our organization, and who is well-positioned to provide leadership.
- Practice and encourage transparent communication in all interactions.
- Commit time and resources to expand more diverse leadership within our board, staff, committee, and advisory bodies.
- Lead with respect and tolerance. We expect all employees to embrace this notion and to express it in workplace interactions and through everyday practices.
The CCC is ADA Compliant and abides by the following action items to help promote diversity and inclusion in our workplace:
- Pursue cultural competency throughout our organization by creating substantive learning opportunities and formal, transparent policies.
- Generate and aggregate quantitative and qualitative research related to equity to make incremental, measurable progress toward the visibility of our diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts. Once the content is curated it will be added to our website so others can access.
- Improve our cultural relationship pipeline by creating and supporting programs and policies that foster leadership that reflects the diversity of American society.
- Pool resources and expand offerings for underrepresented constituents by connecting with other arts organizations committed to diversity and inclusion efforts.
- Develop and present sessions on diversity, inclusion, and equity to provide information and resources internally, and to members, the community, and the culture industry.
- Train our hiring team on equitable practices.
- Advocate for public and private-sector policy that promotes diversity, inclusion, and equity. Challenge systems and policies that create inequity, oppression and disparity.
Definitions
Diversity
The quality of being different or unique at the individual or group level. This includes age; ethnicity; gender; gender identity; language differences; nationality; parental status; physical, mental and developmental abilities; race; religion; sexual orientation; skin color; socio-economic status; education; work and behavioral styles; the perspectives of each individual shaped by their nation, experiences and culture – and more. Even when people appear the same on the outside, they are different.
Inclusion
The act of including; a strategy to leverage diversity. Diversity always exists in social systems. Inclusion, on the other hand, must be created. In order to leverage diversity, an environment must be created where people feel supported, listened to and able to do their personal best.