OAS celebrates National Inclusion Week 2021

What is National Inclusion Week?

Now in its ninth year, National Inclusion week was created by Inclusive Employers, and is designed to celebrate everyday inclusion for everyone and in all its forms, across all sectors and industries. The aim of the event is to share, promote and inspire practices and cultures of active inclusion.

Monday 27 September to Sunday 3 October is National Inclusion Week 2021. This year’s focus is on unity, with the hashtag #UnitedForInclusion representing an evolution of the 2020 theme, ‘Each One, Reach One’, and the connections that were made.

The 2021 event aims to create a platform for everyone to work together and become a force for change and action, uniting to share learning, best practice, successes and challenges.

Why is National Inclusion Week important?

National Inclusion Week provides us all with a great opportunity to think about, learn and identify what we can all do to be more open and inclusive.

Here at OAS, we’re committed to working collaboratively to address the multiple and complex Equality Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) challenges that have resulted in the underrepresentation of particular groups within the engineering industry and the broader Science Technology Engineering and Maths (STEM) workforce.

Our ultimate goal is to improve inclusive access to apprenticeships, and then to provide additional support to ensure all apprentices are empowered and supported to complete their programme. Marking and celebrating key events in the diversity calendar is part of this commitment as we engage with stakeholders throughout our local communities to raise our ED&I profile, improve awareness, and increase diversity in apprenticeships.

Operations Manager at OAS, Emma Johnstone said, “We have a fantastic opportunity this year to incorporate National Inclusion Week within our new cohort’s first week in the training centre. We will be encouraging our apprentices to explore what inclusion means to them and how we can all work together to accept each other for being our true selves – something we hope they will embrace throughout both their apprenticeship and their future careers.”

How are we celebrating National Inclusion Week at OAS?

We’ll be running activities in the training centre as well as getting involved with other inclusion national events:

• We’re running inclusion sessions to discuss and explore what inclusion means at OAS
• We’re holding a charity bake sale, bringing people together for a good cause
• We’re hosting two ED&I webinars as part of the Tilly Shilling & OAS Webinar Series – register here to join:
  • STEMployability on 6 October at 10am – 11:00am
  • EPIC / BAME in STEM on 13 October
• We’re also sharing information, advice and guidance on inclusion topics, such as
  • The Inclusion in Apprenticeships Conference hosted by the BAME Apprentice Network, AELP and Amazing Apprenticeships on Tuesday 28 September between 11am and 2pm
  • Advice from Inclusive Employers on how to diversify your talent pool and empowering and recognising inclusion in your organisation

Keep an eye on our social media channels to see what we’ve got in store and how you can get involved…

Find out more

You can find out more about National Inclusion Week and sign up to take part in some interactive sessions set up by the organisers by visiting https://www.inclusiveemployers.co.uk/national-inclusion-week/