Becoming an anti-racist organisation

Developing our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Plan

The NEA Board and team are aware that the community we serve is the most diverse in the city. To ensure our spaces and services reflect, welcome and celebrate our community we have focused our ED&I work across 2023/2024 on race and have worked with two black led organisations, Passion4Fusion and Project Esperanza in the development of the plan.

We believe this focused plan enhances and bolsters our existing and well proven work addressing barriers to inclusion caused by socio-economic deprivation. A focus on Trauma Informed Practice, commencing in 2024/2025, will further build on our ED&I work to date.

North Edinburgh Arts Anti-Racist Statement

North Edinburgh Arts condemns all forms of racism and discrimination, including anti-Blackness, and will not tolerate racist language, hate speech, or abusive behaviours on our premises or online spaces.

Racism is toxic, corrosive, and everywhere. It is part of our organisations, our institutions, our societal structures, our language, our behaviours, and ourselves. We all learn it – we are socialised into it – as we grow up.

Racism is much more than name-calling or racially motivated violence by individual people or organisations. If it was only that, it would be easier to stop. The systems that reinforce racism have their roots in centuries of racial oppression, including slavery and colonialism, and centuries of whiteness being the norm and therefore invisible.

To rid our society, and ourselves, of racism is a huge task and it may take longer than we want it to. But it is our task. And we must do all we can to do it. We all speak from different vantage points and there is no one homogenous experience.

North Edinburgh Arts has committed to move beyond being a non-racist organisation to being an anti-racist organisation. North Edinburgh Arts understands our role as an organisation, and the part we can play in helping shape a more diverse, tolerant, and respectful society. We will promote an anti-racist culture in our workplace and also influence the communities we are linked to, to do the same. To do this we have to identify the ways in which we contribute to the problem and commit to actively working for change.

Anti-Racism Plan

North Edinburgh Arts has developed a plan to transition from being a non-racist to an anti-racist organisation, is dedicated to the ongoing work required to become an anti-racist organisation. The plan acknowledges the importance of explicitly addressing and combating racism alongside our commitment to inclusivity. It establishes a foundation for change with clear expectations for the organisation, staff, Board members, freelancers, volunteers, and participants.