What is Pride Month and why do we celebrate it 🎉
LGBT Pride Month is celebrated every year in June.
June was chosen to commemorate the LGBT riots against a police raid that took place at the Stonewall Inn in New York City on June 28, 1969. The Stonewall Riots, as they are now commonly known, are considered the “tipping point” for the gay liberation movement and an important moment in LGBT history.
Every June the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community along with its allies come together for a month long celebration of love, diversity, acceptance and unashamed self-pride 💜
Taking the time to reflect on our values 🌈
This year, Team Plum decided they wanted to celebrate the upcoming Pride Month, and got to work thinking about how we could help to highlight this important and historical month in a way that felt true to our values. However, during our meetings we began to realise that even if Plum is a very diverse work environment, filled with people from many different backgrounds, the company had no Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Policy in place ⚖️
We didn’t feel right celebrating Pride Month without taking a step back first. Thus, we used this opportunity to reflect on who we are as a company, what change we can bring, but more importantly, how far we still have to go in order to create a culture that every single one of us feels proud of.
How Plum is moving forward, together 🤝
We recognise that to be the change, we first have to make the change, however small. Which is why we have committed to finding solutions and improving these core elements at Plum:
- Plum employees have worked together on creating an Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Policy. This policy aims to make Plum an inclusive place, that embraces and encourages our employees’ differences in age, colour, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other characteristics that make our employees unique.
- We have now introduced pronouns and other gender-inclusive languages in the office. This includes emails & slack profiles.
- Our very own Elise Nunn will be joining a panel ‘A Welcoming Place - LGBT+ Inclusion & The Financial Services Industry’, on Monday 15th June at 4pm BST. If you'd like to attend the event, you can register here.
- Our team wants to take a step further and collect money that will be donated to an LGBT charity. More info will be published soon.
Andreas Kapsos (He/Him)
Head of Brand
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