December 13, 2023
End of Year Reflections
Welcome to the December newsletter! While our team have had an exciting month with trips to Vietnam, Las Vegas, Brazil and New York and a visiting delegation from Japan, we are not oblivious to the state of the world and extend our deep sympathies to the people in our community who are directly affected by current global conflicts. Violent conflict is a scourge on the Earth and affects every one of us. There are no winners in war, not even the arms dealers, unless you apply a purely monetary lens to ‘winning’. Until each one of us recognises our interdependence we will be caught in the same win/lose dramatic cycle where only the players and places change.
Our mission is to build global harmony through intercultural action. The ability to share in the feelings of the other underpins everything we do and one of the ways we achieve this is through interactive live cultural presentations representing many parts of the world. We thank every one of you who has booked one of our presentations this year and for all your encouragement and support. Finally, we wish everyone a peaceful end to 2023 and a more harmonious 2024.
Book Early for Harmony Week 2024
Harmony Week promotes respect, inclusivity and a sense of belonging for everyone and will be celebrated from the 20 to 26 March 2024. Our schools team are especially busy this time of year taking all your bookings for our phenomenal Harmony Week offerings. Yes, already! Our Education and Experiences team delivered more than 100 cultural incursions over Harmony Week 2023, reaching more than 90 early learning centres, schools and community organisations across Australia.
We remember the history of this week and we know that harmony isn’t the full story of how it came about. The United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination commemorates the 21 March 1960 Sharpeville Massacre in South Africa. We long for a world free from such violence.
Do check out the phenomenal dancers and musicians who performed for Harmony Week at Dandenong Plaza.
re:Invent
Our CEO and founder Peter Mousaferiadis presented our diversity and equity data Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool Diversity Atlas on 30 November at Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) 12th annual re:Invent conference, attended by 65,000 cloud professionals, enthusiasts and experts in Las Vegas, as part of the first-ever AWS Inclusion Playbook launch. Diversity Atlas has a key role in AWS’s inclusion strategies and is featured in the Playbook, accompanied by the following statement: ‘AWS uses Diversity Atlas to enhance our data collection outside the U.S, particularly self-identification and inclusion.’
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is revolutionising and demonstrating exemplary leadership in the field of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (ID&E). We cannot be more proud to be part of it, and of Diversity Atlas being identified as the necessary first step in any genuinely inclusive workplace strategy.
Find links to the whole session or a shorter extract at the Free Resources button below, where you can also find a link to download the free Playbook, a valuable resource for any leader in any field working towards greater inclusion, and a free ID&E (aka DEI) health check.
Read this write up of the event from The Greek Herald.
https://greekherald.com.au/community/peter-mousaferiadis-diversity-atlas-shines-on-the-world-stage/
If your Greek is up to it, you can also read this more general write up in Neos Kosmos.
Building Peace
According to the Global Peace Index 2023, the world spent a stupendous $US 17.5 trillion in 2022 dealing with conflict, marking a 6.6% increase from the previous year. The UN says about 75% of that conflict (ie $13.1 trillion) has a cultural dimension.
We humans find ourselves divided along cultural lines too often, which apart from leading to increased risk of violent conflict, also means missing out on the potential growth, abundance, and joy that mutual curiosity and respect for cultures different from our own can bring.
Here are some suggestions for how each of us can actively contribute to global peace:
- Break the ‘Trance of Separation’: Refuse to otherise anyone. Embrace our shared humanity.
- Reaffirm interconnectedness: Acknowledge and celebrate our interdependence.
- Cultivate curiosity: Educate ourselves, engage with multiple perspectives and foster a culture of understanding.
- Love unconditionally: Suspend moral judgment.
- Support oppressed people: Stand in solidarity with oppressed and marginalised people and advocate for justice, while understanding that many injustices fail to receive proportionate media attention and that achieving justice is hard work that can only be achieved sustainably once everyone sees it is in their best interests.
- What else?
International Delegation
On 9 December Cultural Infusion hosted a six-member Study Team from the International Development Center of Japan Inc. visiting from Japan. The team are working on a comparative study on Global Citizenship Education. We received a kind note from them including the following words:
“From now, we will review the large amount of information and data we received from you in order to understand the current global education in Australia. We are hoping to apply this to Japan’s educational practices.
“Through the discussion with you, we learned that you work seriously everyday with great enthusiasm for the education in your country, and we have great respect for you.”
We look forward to staying in touch with this team and learning more from them and will link our readers to their paper once it’s published.
Our Travelling Team
While our CEO was taking Vegas by storm as well as presenting Diversity Atlas to Université Paris-Saclay and New York University, Diversity Atlas Senior Cultural Ambassador Getrude Matshe was presenting Diversity Atlas at the fifth edition of the Afrofuturismo Festival, Brazil. The Afrofuturismo Festival is the biggest innovation, technology and diversity event in Latin America. Diversity Atlas Chief Technology Officer Rezza Moieni attended meetings in Vietnam with the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and many other organisations. Speaking of his trip, Rezza pointed to the versatility of Diversity Atlas, saying, ‘The good thing about our work is that no matter if you talk to a tech giant or a government department or a local hospital, there is a social aspect of their work that they need support for.’
Do watch Getrude’s presentation.
Calendar Spotlight
Did you know that 20 December is International Human Solidarity Day? This day brings awareness to unity in all communities and emphasises the need to holistically address systemically rooted international problems.
About the author:
Share this Post