Culture Against Racism Pledges

Written By Jenny Dewar

As a Theatre Company of Sanctuary, Curious Monkey’s vision is to create a fairer, more integrated society where everyone is welcomed, valued and heard. We are committed to promoting inclusion and challenging discrimination. We pledge to demonstrate our commitment to denouncing racism in all its forms by:

  • Having open conversations and sharing resources with our participants, board, staff and audiences to raise awareness of and promote anti-racism

  • Continuing to share positive stories of people from global majority backgrounds and/or those with lived experience of the asylum and immigration system through our work

  • Working with other cultural organisations to look at how we address the serious lack of artists, producers and technicians from global majority backgrounds in our region.

  • Increasing the cultural diversity of our staff and creative teams

  • Seeking out funding and creating initiatives through consultation to develop the skills and work opportunities for people of the global majority

  • Holding ourselves accountable and owning our mistakes

  • Recognising our privilege and transferring the benefits to those who lack it

  • Doing more research and personal development to further our understanding of our privilege and of black history

We recognise the need for intersectionality in our journey to be more inclusive and anti-racist and will ensure that we will continue to work with people who are from global majority backgrounds who are also:

  • Refugees and Asylum Seekers, and/or

  • Have lived experience of the care system and/or

  • Disabled, and/or

  • LGBTQIA+, and/or

  • Working Class

So that we can be held accountable for our actions to support our aims laid out on the Culture Against Racism website, we will deliver the following by March 2022.

Learning and raising awareness:

  • Attend Book Club to discuss intersectional identities and issues

  • Read, watch and share resources with others through our participatory projects and social media

  • Share positive stories of people from global majority backgrounds through community engagement with our Curious Caravan and production of ‘Here’ by Lindsay Rodden

Increasing the cultural diversity of the arts workforce

  • Work in partnership with other volunteers to plan a ‘matchmaking’ pilot through consultation with artists from global majority backgrounds with the aim of introducing artists and organisations in the region to create more opportunities for collaboration

  • Share recruitment and training opportunities more widely to reach more people from global majority backgrounds.

  • Recruit and train facilitators on our participatory projects who are from global majority backgrounds to create role models for young people

  • Provide at least 15 volunteering opportunities for people from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds

  • Coordinate 3 artist mentoring programmes with people who are from refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds

Accountability

  • ‘Increase Diversity / integration across the organisation (board, staff, participants, audiences)’ is one of the strategic aims of the company

  • Equality and Diversity is a standing item on our board meeting agenda

  • Publishing these pledges, the progress of which will be reviewed quarterly

Jenny Dewar