Making Greener Kirkcaldy a more diverse and inclusive organisation

During Pride Month, we wanted to share an update on what we are doing to make Greener Kirkcaldy a more diverse and inclusive place. This is equally important for our staff, volunteers, visitors and participants.

An equality pathfinder

We are part of Fife Centre for Equalities’ Equality Pathfinders programme. Equality Pathfinders is a voluntary recognition scheme. The scheme is leading the way in making Fife a fair, equal and inclusive place to live, work and study. We value social justice and community empowerment, so this is important to us.

We published our first Equalities Action Plan in 2023 and we have an internal Equalities Working Group. All teams at Greener Kirkcaldy take part in the group and look after the plan. Here are a few examples of what we have done so far.

Data, data, data

Data is important for organisations wishing to improve equality, diversity and inclusion.

Through all our equalities work, we are very aware how important it is to collect diversity data. This gives us a detailed snapshot of the make-up of our organisation. It also reveals which demographics of people we are not engaging with.

Diversity data provides a benchmark for us to report on progress and inform our equalities action plan. It allows us to measure if our initiatives have been successful. Or if we need to do something different to meet our goals. This data is also our evidence base to show where we need to take any positive actions.

This is why we ask you diversity questions you sign up to our events, apply for a job with us or want to volunteer here. We also did surveys at the start of the process with our staff, volunteers and members.

Equalities training

Staff and board members have had equalities training with Fife Centre for Equalities. We want to make equalities training part of our staff and volunteer induction.

The whole staff team has had anti-racism training from CEMVO Scotland. We learned what it means to be anti-racist and different ways of challenging racism and micro-aggressions.

Seescape, who support visually impaired people across Fife, came to our all staff meeting and trained us in sight loss awareness. Some staff and volunteers have also done guided sight training.

Reaching Out

An important part of our plan is to reach out to groups who are not part of Greener Kirkcaldy yet. We want to learn how we can include them and remove barriers that keeps anyone from joining us. We have been talking to people with deafness and hearing loss, ethnic minority people and the LGBT+ community.

We have purchased a portable hearing loop to use at our events and in the welcome area. We also have a carpet for the events space to soften the sound in there.

We joined the Race Equality Environmental Programme, facilitated by CEMVO Scotland, to explore barriers to minority ethnic groups participating in our work.

And our Energy Advice Team have been visiting The Hive, Fife’s LGBT+ centre on a regular basis to give energy advice. We also invites the members to take part in Greener Kirkcaldy’s activities.

Making our building accessible and welcoming

We have used the Sensory Trust – Access chain tool to review the information we give people before, during and after a visit to the building. We now have a ‘visit us’ page on our website with all the relevant information. The aim is to make our community building in East Fergus Place accessible and welcoming.

We are going to look at our Lang Toun Cycles Community Bike Shop and our training garden at Ravenscraig Walled Garden next. We have already applied for funding for new doors and floor at the bike shop, which will make it more accessible.

Our toilets at 8 East Fergus Place are for everyone. We have changed the signage to be more welcoming and inclusive. We also have sanitary products in all the toilets.

Ea O’Neill, Equalities working group lead