As a Party, championing diversity and inclusion is in our DNA – for proof, look no further than the Preamble to the Constitution:
The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity… We look forward to a world in which all people share the same basic rights, in which they live together in peace and in which their different cultures will be able to develop freely. Upholding these values of individual and social justice, we reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, ethnicity, caste, heritage, class, religion or belief, age, disability, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.
Preamble to the Lib Dem constitution
We know that an essential part of the work we do is not only serving everyone in our communities, but also ensuring our team is reflective of our communities with people from all walks of life, age, ethnicity, etc. Doing so makes us more effective as activists and councillors and more successful electorally.
However, we know that it’s not always easy to know where to start and so we are delighted to be able to announce that ALDC has been working on a suite of resources to help local party and council teams do just that. The first wave of these has launched on our website this week with regular updates and new additions from June. You can find it here.
The resources will be part of a new ‘EDI’ (equality, diversity and inclusion) section of the ALDC website and laid out similarly to our existing toolkits with sections of information and links out to other resources and articles. The first wave of resources includes:
- Equality, diversity and inclusion toolkit
- Diversity and inclusion checklist for local parties
- Local party guide to writing your diversity statement prior to parliamentary candidate selections
- An introductory guide to supporting candidate and councillors with disabilities
- Links to existing ALDC article on the topic of diversity and inclusion
- Resources guides on trans rights and neurodiversity
- Off-the-shelf diversity day social media resources (with editable ones to come)
This summer we will also be launching a new monthly online session which will focus on a different diversity topic each time. The format will vary depending on the topic for the session but will range from Q&A style sessions to training or presentation-style. Each session will be facilitated by ALDC team members and bring together outside people who have lived experience of the topic being discussed.
Finally for those of you heading to Autumn Conference in Brighton, we will also have an EDI stream as part of our training offer over the course of the conference.
We hope that you and your local party will find our new resources and events helpful in your journey to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation, and serve your communities even more effectively. If you have any suggestions or feedback on this set of resources please do let us know by emailing zoe.franklin@aldc.org.