Our intentions & strategic actions on diversity, equity, inclusion & justice
As an organization, we believe that it is our responsibility to create spaces and formats that foster diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. We believe no being should be discriminated against for their sex, race, color, sexual orientation, language, religion, body, political or other opinions, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth, or another status.
Kaospilot+ Berlin is in the process of becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization and educational platform: it is a never-ending process and we know that and are committed to continue to put in the work. We share the following points with you as our way to practice transparency around our self-reflective processes and developmental work, specifically in the context of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.
We have identified a couple of strategic action points and practices that we, in some ways, already established, and for others, promise ourselves to engage with as we grow in order to become more diverse and inclusive, and to support and be part of global social justice movements.
Self-Awareness & Collective Practices
Continuously acknowledging our blind spots - for instance in our organization we’re currently a team of white, north European, middle-class folks, to name a few characteristics, which come with a set of privileges. Many, not all, of our learners, have similar backgrounds. We have been made aware of a lack of diversity amongst our students which we are aware of (for example a lack of diversity identified via visual characteristics of skin colors, which may shadow other diversity criteria of our students for instance in work fields, nationalities, and backgrounds). We are aware of some conditions that can either attract or disable specific students to apply for our courses: discourse and aesthetics, financial ability, openness on one hand, and sufficient social-economical safety nets to take a not-official degree.
Then there are blind spots we haven’t yet identified, and are open to being made aware of.
The privileges we have come with responsibility and we believe our insights around that should be followed by actions. We are willing to learn and practice so that we can make space for the perspectives we are lacking. Most importantly we are ready to do the necessary work of educating ourselves, for instance learning more about our own whiteness, privileges & power positions. The insights we have gotten so far came from being made aware of them, questioning and reflecting on our own stance & actions as an organization in a time wherein a global contexts questions of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice are loudly and validly raised. We seek to learn how to establish anti-discriminatory practices in our organization and programs by offering and participating in workshops that will enable us to do the work.
How diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice are reflected in our programs
We believe that we need practitioners with diverse backgrounds and experiences to share their expertise and perspectives with our learners. We are trying to reflect that in who we hire for input, lectures, and into our team.
In regards to the actual content and themes touched upon in our programs, we as facilitators and many of our external lecturers amongst other things touch upon topics relevant for the concepts of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice such as power and power dynamics, privilege, class, inclusive leadership, white fragility, and intersectional feminism. We generally try to point out and support the people, initiatives, and organizations that are already doing the work.
Accessibility to our programs and diversity of learning teams
We are not a state-recognized educational institution as our radical design does not fit the traditional educational systems requirement. This is an active choice and we believe that having to follow traditional requirements would not allow us to create a program that is truly centered on the individual learner’s needs. This decision also influences our current business model which requires payment for our program by our participants. This is something we are striving to change, as we are very aware of the fact that our current financial requirements hinder a lot of people from partaking in our educational programs. (Other factors can be that acquiring an ‚non-degree’ as ours is not supportive enough in overall educational systems that strictly rank people based on the validity, recognition, and worth of their diplomas). We are aware that structural disadvantages can easily be reinforced and we do what we can to break out of this vicious circle.
To change that we are currently working on strategic partnerships with foundations, organizations, and companies in order to offer scholarships to subsidize or fully fund the program, making it possible for those with a funding barrier to participating. The consulting work we do with our organization aims at reducing the prices for our educational programs as low as possible.