The pursuit of inclusion requires more than just achieving diversity in the workplace.

Another moment of education and reflection hit me this week when I was visited by the youthful and vibrant team from www.giftedcommunitypwd.com ; If I start to tell you about the depth and intensity of their work, this writeup will once again be longer than I intend it to be... take a pause and go visit their website... or copy that link, open a tab to come back to and finish reading... Suffice it to say that on a daily basis, this small and powerful team of young people wake up and go take actions to break the barriers that Kenyan youth with disabilities face. They have their strongest presence in the slums of Kibera, and are setting up satellite hubs in other counties in the country. Their mission is to reshape the futures of youth with disabilities in Kenya to where they can freely pursue their life's purpose in a society that ensures their full inclusion and participation. Thank you Sarah and Dennis for blessing us at The Centre with your presence and free flowing wisdom. You truly educated us...

Just so we are on the same page, I have the simple understanding of these key terms as such: "Diversity is the presence of differences within a given setting; this can mean differences in race, ethnicity, abilities, gender or any other number of things. Inclusion is the practice of ensuring that people feel a sense of belonging and support from the organization'.

The team from GCC kept us in awe, as we discussed the seed that bloomed their vision, i.e. their lived experience. The co-founders both acquired difficulties in their abilities in their later childhood years. This followed an immersion into a new world with other young people in high school where they had to cope and adjust to living with their various physical and mental challenges. I listened to the vision of this youth led organisation and was once again reminded why my problems would not soon be about how to get to go vacation on the moon before the rest of the world, or acquire world domination by owning Twitter... there are real challenges that humans still have to overcome before this becomes my priority... I digress... Let me return to the highlights of the visit. (getting more and more common these days)

My colleagues who had joined me in this meeting-Nicole, Billy and I were riveted with this team's stories of aspiration, tenacity and passion. My anthropology background shows up in these moments-I was totally enthralled and curious about the big and the little things. While this is not the first Persons with Disability Organisation that I have worked with, I have found that each and every story that I have been privileged to work alongside with is unique. This one was equally an education for me. I listened with keen intent as Sarah enlightened us on the efforts they are making to reach out to their community of interest -we discussed the varied physical and mental challenges that they have come across; and how they affect young people's vision, communication, movement, thinking, remembering, learning, socialisation and the list goes on. My mind was blown. Our guests helped us better understand how these the physical and mental impairments, limitation and/or restrictions pose challenges to how the affected young people exist and participate in their daily lives. Then we talked about the barriers to improving their situation-(they were obviously very patient with us); Sarah and Dennis were gracious enough to break things down to the micro level to help us better appreciate the nature of their work-they absolutely did not have to, and we were grateful that they did. Many things humbled us, and I was especially struck by the notion of the visible and invisible disabilities- This was a direct challenge to me. On a day to day, my vocation leads me to speaking to vast groups of people as part of my advocacy agenda towards effective and viable funding relationships on the continent. I recognised how I unconsciously make an assumption that everyone in the room, or virtual call (we are indeed still in this hybrid communication season after all!) is keeping up with the conversation-think on that for a minute, it came to me in waves, and waves of "do better" chants.

As I was digesting this piece of information, and thinking about how I can be more mindful in my own sphere of life, the team continued on. They delved into the delicate work of creating inclusions within the disability community-and this is what triggered this particular journal.

Over time, the GCC team has had to tackle the exclusions-conscious and unconscious that happens even within the community of persons with disabilities. The team has had to ensure that folks with different abilities, do not remain in silos, and instead consciously acknowledge the diversity amongst them, and then make effort to include those with different abilities into their spaces. This was well illustrated to me with a simple example: when they celebrate, they clap by hand for the hearing, use the universal clap sign for those with hearing impairments and they then use touch language for those who are visually impaired... all this is happening real-time in a meeting. This illustration brought is home for me. I went into a pensive mood 🤔 . Sarah explained to me simply, that as a community they have come to the agreement that it is the duty of all members of the community to ensure that they successfully communicate with everyone in the room. It is not the duty of one group or individual's to make everyone feel included- all make effort to listen to others and also ensure they are heard at the same time. So well put, so matter of fact from these young people! No one taught them this, it is their reality, it is the most natural way to approach things for them-because they are of this community. Now, to some of you, this may be a given, and so please allow me to go on my education journey at my pace... (Insert Teckno's "Allow me to enjoy myself" tune to this last sentence-and you are welcome for the loop that is about to happen in your mind for the next few hours 😃)

After that commercial break, let us get back to the serious issue here...

I am not sure why, but the work that Sarah, her co-founder and their team of less than ten were doing, took me back to my "other" conversations around diversity on board and teams in the organisations in the non profit and philanthropy sector which I am most familiar with. As a technical support centre, we have done several works in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion lately. Too often the brief I get, when I ask the same line of question as I did with Sarah at the beginning is "why do you want to do this/why are you doing this?"-this is always my standard "get-to-know-you" question for any engagement or interaction with institutions that chose to collaborate with us. In this case, most responses are "How or where do I recruit board/staff members of xyz profile"; we have looked around and we see that we do not have that group represented and we know we need to "include" them in our teams.

Now, some of you reading this, may not see the problem with this statement-that is a sad. No worries, we are all on a journey to educate ourselves. Here is my perspective. Asking this question is problematic on many fronts, but the biggest one I want to highlight in view of the story I just shared with the efforts of GCC is that it is the wrong question to start with. Here is what I propose to start tackle this issue more meaningfully:

1. In the spirit of starting with WHY, it may be more useful for organisations to start with having honest and bold conversations about what it is about them that has caused this exclusion-is it their culture, is it their leadership (although these two arguably can be the same thing... 😊); what conditions have caused this in the first place, whether it has been done consciously or unconsciously?... the point is-understand why this exclusion has happened in the first place. Have these conversations at all levels, create safe spaces to receive honest opinions and perspectives-and weigh all the information you are getting, and hear what you need to change internally first and foremost. The question is What has caused our place to be unconducive to xyz population?
2. Be ready-truly ready for what diversity will mean for the organisation. This can potentially mean changes in the staff-even letting go of the proverbial "sacred cows" in some instances; accept the turbulence that may be caused with a different perspective on issues that have long been "the usual", changes in how you look, how you organise, how you communicate, how you present yourself in brand identity for example, how you sit in the office, etc may be needed-this could suggest an investment in time and money to correct the historical wrongs. So, ensure this commitment to putting in the work is actually secured at top level and then cascaded across the organisation. This is one of the few areas where we can potentially allow a top-down goal setting process 😉.
3. Put in the work!-call out deviations and mischief, have difficult conversations that challenge mindsets, stand firm in the conviction, and listen... truly listen, and act on what is being recommended to correct the actions. Avoid adding diversity as a "performance" and truly redesign your whole systems and cultures to ensure when you do bring these different backgrounds, then they will feel welcomed, accepted, they will not face challenge, exclusions and hostility.

Let me conclude my musing for now. With a call to emulate the GCC team in being deliberate in bringing on board the right mix of talent, background, experiences that you require; and this requires us to do the internal work, in order to be truly inclusive. Let me go back on to what is going to be ongoing-here is a recommendation for you who is inclined to chalk this down to "good intentions"-which as we know can be harmful and a defence mechanism-here are two books that I am currently reading that are helping me on this journey, feel free to tell me what you think of what is suggested there:

• To help with your leadership: "How to be an Inclusive Leader" by Jennifer Brown
• To help with building an inclusive culture: "Subtle Acts of Exclusion" by Tiffany Jana