Ongoing learning and dialogue

Oxfam Canada must provide our staff and Board with ongoing learning and dialogue opportunities to understand and engage with our anti-racism and JEDI work and to apply an anti-oppression approach to all of our work.

Progress highlights

Senior management took the recommendations from the “April 2022 JEDI report” seriously. To encourage feedback from staff and provide an opportunity for discussion, the senior leadership team offered debriefing spaces and anti-racism and JEDI drop-ins to encourage meaningful conversations. They also held one-on-one conversations to delve deeper into the issues raised in the report. New staff are briefed on the “April 2022 JEDI report” and the work the Oxfam Canada is doing to address its findings.

Staff must continue to be engaged in this important work. Oxfam Canada resourced and supported staffled cross-departmental committees on Anti-Racism and JEDI, Indigenous Rights and Justice, Feminist Principles, and Organizational Culture. Furthermore, the Communications department conducted an ethical content gathering and storytelling training in 2021 and provided one-on-one coaching to program staff focused on Oxfam’s ethical content guidelines, on content gathering, management and use and on upholding the rights of people being photographed.

For dialogue to be effective, Oxfam Canada must build relationships with other like-minded organizations. Oxfam Canada focused on building relationships with organizations led by and in support of BIPOC communities as part of its advocacy and public engagement activities:

• We invited a diverse group of activists from coast to coast at the annual Oxfam Summit.

• We funded various BIPOC initiatives in Canada through our SRHR community support fund.

• We provided financial support to several organizations driving forward feminist, anti-racist agendas as part of our in-Canada programming (Colour of Poverty – Colour of Change, Black Women in Motion, the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, the National Congress of Black Women Foundation and the Assembly of Seven Generations).

Oxfam Canada’s Bargaining Unit –Contributing to anti-racism and JEDI

CUPE Local 2722, Oxfam Canada’s bargaining unit (BU), has advanced several initiatives to respond to and reflect on the “April 2022 JEDI report,” including the following:

• Convened a biweekly, dedicated, informal and optional space for BIPOC BU members to talk about JEDI. The space was created in response to expressed member needs for a safer space to discuss JEDI in their work environment.

• Gathered BU member input on JEDI as part of the BU’s preparations for collective bargaining.

• Socialized with the BU membership CUPE National’s newly adopted Anti-Racism Strategy.

• Encouraged the BU membership to participate in CUPE National’s “Let’s Connect: A national space for Black, Indigenous, and Racialized CUPE members” online event.

• Socialized CUPE National’s new guide, “Truth and reconciliation: CUPE taking action through collective bargaining” with the BU membership.

• Continues to acknowledge that the Local is located on occupied, traditional, ancestral, and unceded on Oxfam Canada’s work to grow as an anti-racist, feminist and inclusive organization

• Anishinabe Algonquin Territory, where Anishinabe and other Indigenous Peoples continue to live since time immemorial.

• Continues to address JEDI issues brought to its attention by BU members as they relate to the Collective Agreement.