Our pledges Inclusion Our pledge: Is to ensure our organisation, and how we approach and undertake our work, includes diversity of thought, and that inclusion is embedded into our culture. As an organisation one of our strategic goals is, 'All of our work will include a diverse range of voices which reflect our communities and will influence positive change.' We know from all the research that where people live, their gender, their ethnicity, and other intersectionality factors of individuals and groups of people all affect how active we are. We want to break down the barriers preventing equity of opportunity, so that everyone can lead a healthy and active lifestyle. To help us achieve this, we need to better understand the barriers and challenges people face from the many diverse communities in our county. We have an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion working group consisting of 7 of the 14 members of the Energize team and also our Board Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champion. They meet regularly and their recent work has been the creation of our Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan. The delivery of this plan will help us to achieve our pledge. Safe Ageing No Discrimination In order to better understand the barriers and challenges people face and to give our support, we have signed SAND's LGBT covenant. SAND abbreviates Safe Ageing No Discrimination and they work to improve experiences of older and old LGBT+ people in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin. We are actioning the five commitments in the covenant; these are: Commit to providing the best possible quality services for older and old LGBT+ people We will encourage all groups and organisations we work with and/or fund which support older and old people to have an awareness and understanding of issues facing LGBT+ people. Commit to learning what life can be – and has been – like for different LGBT+ people. We will seek out people with lived experience who can help us understand what we can do to further support LGBT+ people. We will undertake relevant training online, and in person, where possible. Commit to vocally and visually supporting groups working with and for older and old LGBT+ people We will include support for relevant national and local campaigns in our marketing. We will promote good examples of engagement with LGBT+ people in physical activity or sport. Commit to creating meaningful opportunities for LGBT+ people and groups to ‘influence’ what you do We will investigate how best to create meaningful opportunities to enable our work and approaches to our work to be influenced and supported by LGBT+ people and groups. Commit to assess and evidence work carried out to engage LGBT+ people (within the group/organisation and outside it) We will review at least once a year our work to support and champion older and old LGBT+ people. The Energize team took part in a workshop with SAND and heard about the fear and discrimination that exists for older LGBT+ people. Some people can become even more isolated than others when ageing and they're less likely to lead an active lifestyle as a result. One of the steps we have taken is purchasing ‘Inclusive’ (rainbow stripe) lanyards for our Elevate postural stability instructors to wear when delivering strength and balance falls prevention classes to people aged 60 and over in Shropshire. Visit SAND’s website for more information about their work. Manage Cookie Preferences