The 3rd of December marks the annual celebration of the International Day of People with Disability, first announced in 1992 by the United Nations General Assembly. This year, the International Day of People with Disability (IDPwD) theme is “Building Back Better: toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 World”.
IDPwD provides individuals, groups and organisations the opportunity to celebrate and share their commitments, stories and experiences of the empowerment of people with disability in the workplace. It’s never too early or too late to help celebrate this important occasion, which is why we’ve covered three ways that you too, can help celebrate IDPwD this year.
Create Awareness
There are plenty of great ways you can continue to help create and spread awareness about IDPwD. You can start something bold and creative, such as Fujitsu’s ‘Be Completely You’ video, or even host or attend an IDPwD event like a morning tea or a BBQ. There are some great examples of company campaigns and initiatives that aim to create awareness around diversity, inclusion and people with disability, including HOBAN being awarded Disability Confident Recruiter (DCR) status – just the 11th organisation in Australia to achieve this!
Although these are workplace initiatives helping to create awareness, you too can help create awareness by simply asking your employer whether they have a commitment, policy, program or initiative to foster the inclusion of people with disability in the workplace. Who knows, you might be the catalyst needed within your workplace or community group to get the ball rolling.
Encourage learning
It’s important to remember that celebrating IDPwD goes far beyond the day itself. It is, after all, an opportunity to learn about, not only ourselves but the benefits that can be derived from the inclusion of people with disability across all aspects of life.
There is still time to take part in one of the events that help to promote people to engage with IDPwD. These events provide a great way to encourage learning, especially if you can involve your workplace or community group.
If you have an initiative in your workplace already, you could organise an information session to help shine a light on the value and purpose of your programs, as these can often be sidelined due to the lack of information available. Even if your organisation doesn’t have a formal policy or program, an information and training session on the subject of people with disability in the workplace is a great way to help others feel more comfortable when engaging in discussions around inclusion, diversity and disability. We encourage you to lock in a date for your workplace session, to help spread awareness in the New Year.
Share
Celebrating IDPwD is about sharing our stories, experiences and engaging in the discussion about the value that the inclusion of people with disability offers to our communities, groups and workplaces. Sharing our stories is a crucial part in helping discover new ideas and keeping in touch with the importance of IDPwD.
If you’ve hosted or attended an event, or simply want to read some of the amazing stories from this important occasion, you can use and follow #IDPD (global) and #IDPWD (Australia) to join the conversation.
We’d love to hear what you or your organisation did to celebrate IDPwD this year! Feel free to drop us a line here.
