Tag: Diversity & inclusion

‘Quiet hour’ for customers with autism

Supermarket introduced low-sensory time

A great example of how initiatives for special needs benefit many more people:

One of New Zealand’s supermarket chains has introduced a low-sensory “quiet hour” nationwide. It is “easy on the eyes and ears by reducing noise, lighting and other distractions in-store” and has been developed with support of Autism New Zealand.

“The lovely thing about quiet hour is that we have had very positive feedback from so many customers. Our older customers seem to really enjoy quiet hours too, as well as many other Kiwis who actually just find shopping a bit stressful and can now visit at a more peaceful time.”

General manager Kiri Hannifin

Here is the Countdown press release, and an article in the Guardian.

“Becoming a truly inclusive organisation starts at the top”

Creating a diverse Board

… says Cath Hume, CEO of the Arts Marketing Association (UK) as she writes about the AMA’s process to get to a more diverse board. She also admits that “There have been difficult conversations along the way. Talking about inclusivity and access can be challenging, emotional, personal and delicate.”

Read more in her article on ArtsProfessional .

Power and Privilege in the 21st Century Museum

A new report published by the UK Museum Association

A new report published by the UK Museum Association highlights the challenges of inclusion in museums and gives practical insights and tools for change across a range of themes in short articles by practitioners: Power and Privilege in the 21st Century Museum

Perceptions Matter – How Welcoming Are Cultural Organizations?

Cultural organisations as “places for people like me”

Younger audiences are more likely to think that cultural organisations are not ‘for people like for them’, says Colleen Dilenschneider in this KYOB post.

“There’s a lot to the ‘negative attitude affinities’ conversation. It’s wrapped up in diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as age, physical ability, interest, income, being a parent or not, and self-identity. And because people are many things, there is no single magic bullet,” she argues.

The solution (and challenge) – an organisational culture that is consistently welcoming and to people of various different backgrounds and needs.

Welcoming diverse visitors – are you looking at the data in the right way?

A diverse audience is a much proclaimed goal for many cultural organisations, and rightly so. Public arts organisations need to be relevant to a broad population in order to be sustainable and funded long term. This means striving for an audience that is representative of the population.

The upcoming NZ census will tell us more about the ever-increasing diversity of the NZ population and with the update of the Audience Atlas by MHM and Creative NZ due in a few months, we will be able to compare cultural audiences with the population and understand the opportunities and challenges.

Here is a good perspective on how to look at such data and how to interpret (and not mis-interpret) it by Colleen Dilenschneider: Why Some Cultural Organizations Overestimate Success In Welcoming Diverse Visitors