Excellence in Diversity Awards

Category: Latest Blog

  • Merlin Housing

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Diverse Company Award for Housing Sector

    Merlin Housing strives to be a world class organisation and a leader in DEI, so have set their ambitions high. A medium sized social landlord with nearly 9,000 homes concentrated in and around South Gloucestershire, serving a diverse customer base of over 17,000, this fantastic organisation truly invests in its people and communities. They have an astonishing library of projects and initiatives under their belt which reflects how Merlin Housing are truly making an impact within their local community. With numerous awards and accreditations to be proud of, including ‘Investors In People ‘, ‘Customer Service Excellence’, and ‘Stamp out Stigma Awards’, it is clear to see that they’re passionate about the cause. Their dedication is outstanding and quality evidence showcased the brilliant networks in place internally, encouraging employees to embrace equality. The hard work and dedication of the talented staff is undoubtedly the driving force behind the success of Merlin Housing, and a position on this year’s shortlist was definitely warranted.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Professor Uduak Archibong MBE

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Lifetime Achiever Award

    Uduak Archibong is Professor of Diversity at the University of Bradford, where she directs the Centre for D&I, providing strategic oversight for equality and diversity across the university. A Visiting Professor at several international universities, a Fellow of the West African College of Nursing, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing Uduak is recognised as a leader in D&I and sets the agenda to drive research, learning and knowledge exchange activities internationally. Informed by over 25 years’ experience of working in HE sector, Uduak’s academic and professional work has major impact locally, nationally & globally. Key among these impacts is the body of her research work, which provides a robust understanding of the challenges of applying interventions in enhancing workforce diversity and inclusive service delivery. She is currently leading a major multi-million EC funded action research project, GENOVATE, across 7 European Universities to transform organisational culture for gender equality in research and innovation.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Legal Aid

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Outstanding Diversity Network Award

    Diversity Champions (DCs) Network is made up of a group of 40 employees of all grades and job roles across the Legal Aid Agency. What originally started out as a disability focused group, is now a network of diversity champions working to promote all 9 of the protected characteristics. DCs have demonstrated great activity throughout the agency and have contributed hugely to raising the profile of equality and diversity issues in the LAA throughout 2015, and the start of 2016. This can be recognised in a number of ways, including the fact that in November the Agency was rated by its own staff as the third fairest and most inclusive organisation in the civil service – an impressive achievement. In addition, appropriately three quarters of staff feel the Agency is taking effective action to tackle bullying, harassment and discrimination, a fact reflected in a reduction in the number of staff who feel they have experienced this. The DCs exceptional contribution to their place of work has secured them a place on this shortlist.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Gary Zetter

    EiDA16 Winner

    Employee of the Year Award

    For most of his career, Gary had hidden his sexuality for fear of it hindering his career progression or alienating him from colleagues, until he joined Mitie. From that day, he has continuously promoted and supported others from all diverse backgrounds, going above and beyond his role as Director. He is now the founding member of Mitie’s Diversity Steering Group. As part of the Group he became ‘Race Champion’ and Champion for LGBT&Q. This gave powerful impetus throughout other diversity groups, where he became the Joint Chair for Mitie’s LGBTQ Network ‘Proud to be’, and more recently launched Mitie’s BAME Network ‘Kaleidoscope’. Gary is also an Advisory Board Member for the Association for Black Engineers, and is the Mitie lead person for the ‘Lives Not Knives‘ Mentoring Scheme. In addition, Gary has set ‘Community Reach Targets’, which have enabled Mitie to reach out to over 5,000 students and Young Adults through ‘Making STEM Hot,’ which targets diverse communities to spark a thought of a career within the STEM Sector.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Bolton CVS- Breast Feeding Friendly Bolton

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Diversity Marketing Campaign of the Year Award

    Bolton CVS launched the Breastfeeding Friendly Bolton scheme in 2013. The scheme was developed initially in response to a piece of consultation carried out within the South Asian Community that explored breastfeeding practice. The research identified a high percentage of mums declaring that they had stopped breastfeeding their babies before they had planned to because of issues around feeding their babies in public. They opened up the discussion with mums across Bolton and spoke with over 100 mothers about their breastfeeding experiences in public. As a result, Breastfeeding Friendly Bolton was born. Their strategy was to identify and offer Free breastfeeding best practice training to as many local eateries and public places as possible. To date, they have awarded the Breastfeeding Friendly Bolton award to 45 local venues. The outcome has certainly been positive, with the Campaign improving local knowledge on the rights of breastfeeding mothers, and a reported increase of breastfeeding mums visiting their establishments.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Sarah Ismail

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Diverse Champion Award for Charity

    Freelance journalist Sarah Ismail set up a website in 2007 called Same Difference, highlighting disability related issues and providing disabled readers with current news, useful information and helpful tips. Having perceived a need for information and campaigning on disability issues, Sarah has worked tirelessly to fulfil it. She has taken great strides to ensure the design of the website is accessible to people with all disabilities, and aims to raise awareness of rare disabilities and health conditions. Sarah has created a universal network which has reached an astonishing 2 million views since its inception. This extraordinary role model is also a Trustee of the Nihal Armstrong Trust, a small charity which provides grants to children with Cerebral Palsy for relevant equipment and services, which local authorities do not provide. Sarah was also among the first group of disabled children to leave specialist schools for mainstream ones, and completed a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing in 2008.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Dean Ridgewell

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Diverse Champion Award for Private

    Dean has been a campaigner for diversity and inclusion all of his professional life. His passion was first ignited in 1991, when he came out at a time when it was perceived as a crime to be homosexual. Dean has been in recruitment for over 22 years and has worked extremely hard to overcome many challenges to reach a position of Directorship. He is a Diversity ambassador at Empiric and has partnered with Stonewall, Job Centre Plus and Women in Recruitment to bring about a true culture of D&I. Dean provides consultancy and actionable roadmap to HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, and Thomson Reuters on hiring diverse talent. He has also launched a new careers website targeted specially towards LGBT talent pool (proudhires.com), and regularly chairs a host of diversity networks including Parents network, LGBT network, BAME network and Women at Work network. In addition, Dean hosted Empiric’s first ever pre-pride party for clients from LGBT communities and their allies, as well as Led Empiric’s first London Pride March, with 100% staff turnout.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Touchstone

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Diverse Company Award for Charity

    Leeds based charity; Touchstone was born in 1982, after a need for friendship and community within South Leeds was identified. It was acknowledged that large numbers of vulnerable people were left feeling isolated and distressed out of hours and during the weekends, which led to the development of a ‘weekend club’ which eventually developed into Touchstone. More than 30 years on and Touchstone provides mental health and wellbeing services to over 2,000 people per year, aiming to make the cities they work in more culturally competent and better able to meet the needs of the vulnerable people they support. Featured in the Stonewall Top 100 Employers List since 2014, Touchstone are active in promoting Equality & Diversity across the organisation aswell as the whole of West Yorkshire. They lead on a series of community based initiatives including ‘MAP’ (Migrant Access Project), a profound initiative that has been implemented to help guide newly arrived migrants to access local services such as GP Surgeries and Schools.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Wendy O’Carroll

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Diversity Champion Award for Charity

    After giving birth to her second child Oliver, Wendy quickly realised that accessible information and support was lacking for parents to children with Down Syndrome. Due to this, she founded the charity ‘Ups and Downs Southwest’, to supply information, advice and support to parents, carers, families, friends and professionals throughout the South West region. The charity has grown from its early beginnings from just Wendy with a computer in her bedroom and piles of books under the stairs, to a charity that now employs 8 people, and directly supports over 600 families and 250 schools across 12 counties; with many hundreds more indirectly through Facebook, emails and the internet. Wendy works tirelessly to support other parents, but most of all to encourage and raise positive awareness and understanding of just how vital our children and young people with Down Syndrome are to our lives, and to society. The heart-warming endorsements submitted for Wendy showcases the true impact she had has on many people’s lives.

    Return to 2016 Winners

  • Siobhan Corria

    EiDA16 Shortlisted Nominee

    Head of Diversity & Inclusion Award

    With over 4000 employees and over 600 services throughout the UK, Siobhan leads responsibility for D&I for Action for Children. In this position, Siobhan has developed networks and increased the charity’s reputation as an inclusive employer in a short timescale. She has achieved this through excellent communication and a determination to increase senior visibility and support of the inclusion agenda. Siobhan set up the Celebrate LGBT staff network and Inclusion Champions staff network, which currently has 47 Inclusion Champions nationwide. A number of endorsements from external fields commended Siobhan’s collaborative & inclusive approach to working with different organisations to leverage best practice, effectively engage with internal leadership to develop support, and successfully implement a number of initiatives in the workplace. Siobhan recently set up an inclusion network for Wales, and was acknowledged for her voluntary work for Cardiff and Vale Sanctuary Support and UK Sepsis Trust.

    Return to 2016 Winners