Our commitment to inclusive communities
Engage Globally believes
Our work is intentionally designed to support inclusivity and to magnify the voices of under-represented people and their communities.
Below are some of the strategies we use.
Partners and projects
Building an inclusive Engage community - Board of Directors, interns, and volunteers
Within our organization, we strive to build an inclusive community of Directors, interns, and volunteers by:
- communities are stronger, more vibrant, and more resilient when they are inclusive
- achieving sustainable development requires racial justice and gender equality
- we can each contribute to making local, national, and global communities more just, more inclusive, and more sustainable
Our work is intentionally designed to support inclusivity and to magnify the voices of under-represented people and their communities.
Below are some of the strategies we use.
Partners and projects
- A best practice of community-led development is to ensure that representatives of different sectors of the community are included in consultations and decision-making. In Ghana, our partners have a women's group, a youth group, a parent teacher association and regularly consult with traditional and faith leaders. In Costa Rica, our partners have a community board that brings together many community members to discuss the Children's Eternal Rainforest. They also collaborate with other community, conservation, and business organizations in their work.
- Engage Globally supports projects that directly promote gender equality and seek to enhance opportunities for women in areas where they previously have had less representation.
- Our projects also focus on including youth and families with lower incomes and/or who have previously had less access to resources.
- Throughout our work, we seek to magnify the voices of, and share the expertise of, individuals and communities who are under-represented in global conversations about sustainable development.
Building an inclusive Engage community - Board of Directors, interns, and volunteers
Within our organization, we strive to build an inclusive community of Directors, interns, and volunteers by:
- Intentionally advertising opportunities to a wide audience
- Providing a variety of intern and volunteer experiences that build on people's skills, talents, and interests
- Encouraging community members to invite friends and colleagues to join us
- Discussing inclusivity during our Board meetings, among interns, and with our partners during project planning
- Highlighting our work with under-represented communities in our reports, publications, and social media messaging
- Incorporating environmental justice and social equality into our grants, funding requests, and funding partnerships
Goals
As an organization and a community, we have much more to learn and do. Some of our immediate goals include:
As an organization and a community, we have much more to learn and do. Some of our immediate goals include:
- Creating educational resources that are accessible to a wider range of people, including publishing in Spanish and using principles of Universal Design.
- Sharing resources on:
- the intersection of racial justice, environmental justice, and environmental conservation.
- strategies for building inclusive communities.
- Paying interns - we recognize that unpaid internships contribute to inequality in access for these opportunities. At this time, Engage is an all volunteer organization, but overtime we hope to find a path to paying interns. In the meantime, we welcome interns who are completing internships for academic credit. We help prospective interns identify sources of funding and support for their internship. And, we emphasize professional development as a component of our internship program to ensure that the experience helps each intern grow and expand their ability to pursue their goals.
Resources
- We designed our Solidarity Circles guide to encourage community-building and collaborative learning and action for racial justice in the United States.
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