All week, and in the months leading up this week, the Diversity Committee has collectively been making a real fuss about Culture Week.

From cakes for all on Monday to Zia Chaudry MBE speaking about diversity, Rachel Boyle speaking about perception, our people talking about LGBTQ+ identities and unconscious biases, finishing with conversations around privilege and how it affects pathways into law  and food sharing on Friday, we’ve worked to pull one of Diversity Committee’s first major events together.

But why? Why have we spent these last few months planning and prepping for this week, obsessing over speakers and numbers to make sure everyone has a chance at a Diversity Committee cupcake?

Because culture matters.

Culture isn’t just our background, or heritage, or something that our workplace prides itself on by Making A Positive Difference.

It isn’t just what language you speak, religion you practice, how you express yourself.

Culture isn’t just difference. It’s also similarities. It’s so much more than one singular idea.

We live in divided and divisive times. In times when culture can be weaponised or used as a reason to treat people differently and divide them, culture matters more than ever.

It matters to share it, to celebrate it, to remind people that everyone has culture, and to learn about our own culture and that of others. It also matters to understand how culture is used against some people, through unconscious bias, through Othering, and through dominant narratives in the media.

This week saw its raison d’être in the Diversity Committee’s desire to celebrate culture, which goes hand in hand with sharing culture, and encouraging others to learn something new about themselves and those around them.

Culture Week is about an open hand, an invitation, a conversation. And we are so pleased that you took that invitation.

Here’s to more conversations and to continued change!