Framework

Three lanes to advance JEDDI across B.C.’s motion picture industry.

JEDDI for the Individual, the Organization and the Industry

Foundational Concepts

JEDDI is a practice, not a destination. To get started as an individual, organization or industry, a shared understanding of terms and concepts is required for communication and collaboration. Use these resources to develop a common frame of reference as you undertake individual, organizational or industry-wide transformation projects.

JUSTICE Justice is about what’s right – that people should be treated fairly, have access to the same opportunities, and experience no barriers due to their race, gender identity or expression, and ability. Relevant to the JEDDI work, justice speaks to dismantling systems and structures that create inequality, and replacing them with systems that promote fairness and opportunity for diverse groups of people to succeed and thrive together. Justice, then, is a product of creating a diverse, inclusive, and equitable society.

EQUITY Equity is a principle and process that promotes fair conditions for all persons to fully participate in society. It recognizes that while all people have the right to be treated equally, not all experience equal access to resources, opportunities or benefits. Achieving equality does not necessarily mean treating individuals or groups in the same way, but may require the use of specific measures to ensure fairness. Equity is a product of processes and measures that remove barriers and increase fairness.

DECOLONIZATION Decolonization is the dismantling of the process by which one nation asserts and establishes its domination and control over another nation’s land, people and culture. It is the framework through which we are working toward undoing the oppression and subjugation of Indigenous peoples in what is now known as British Columbia and unlearning colonial ways of thinking and being.

DIVERSITY Relevant to JEDDI work, diversity is measured against 13 protected grounds by the Canadian Human Rights Act, including race, gender identity or expression, and ability. Diversity within a group of people or projects can be changed over time when equity principles and processes are applied to influence the group’s composition. The term diversity refers to the composition of a collective or group — an individual cannot be diverse, but can diversify a group’s composition.

INCLUSION Inclusion is not a natural consequence of diversity. Inclusion is supported when barriers are removed, experience is examined and improved, and unconscious negative influences and their unintended impacts are actively mitigated. This requires JEDDI work be done at all levels – industry, organization and individual – in order that inclusion is experienced by any member of society. Inclusion is, then, a feeling or perspective shared by people with different identities – a sense of being welcomed, belonging, being valued, listened-to, leveraged and developed to participate and contribute in any given setting.

JEDDI Health is founded on four core areas that together ensure a balanced and holistic JEDDI practice – individually, organizationally and as an industry.

INTERSECTIONALITY Recognize the relationship dynamics that exist across social categories and levels of power within an organization and how they interact with policies, distribution of power, and access to opportunities. This approach centres a systems change lens on equitable practices.

ENGAGEMENT Illuminate the value that organizations place on their employees, stakeholders, and community. Identify the offerings that collaboration brings to the organization’s growth.

ACCOUNTABILITY Respond to change with responsibility, transparency, consistency, and the will for equity and justice.

SUSTAINABILITY Unearth how an organization nurtures practices and relationships that build and strengthen a diverse, inclusive, empowering, and sustainable future.

In our daily lives as well as in our work lives, power and privilege are part of the organizational and social structures in which we all participate. We all are at times advantaged or disadvantaged by imbalances.

We are all affected by power imbalances, sometimes negatively and sometimes positively. Power imbalances create situations of privilege that inherently favour some and disadvantage others.
Privilege that negatively affects those not in a position of power is oppression. Much of the power of privilege comes from its invisibility – it seems normal and even natural. Different power imbalances cause forms of oppression that interlock to make individuals’ experiences different.

The oppression may be felt as negative attitudes towards personal characteristics, beliefs, ideas, opinions and more. Systemic responses to individuals affect entire groups within our society.

Exclusion is the result of power imbalances. These people who are excluded, have less power and are therefore marginalized.

Excerpted from Training for Moderators, Canadian Council for Refugees

https://www.diversityessentials.com/

INDIVIDUAL

Doing JEDDI work at the individual level means developing greater cultural competence. It requires every individual to examine their own “lens”, or cultural frame of reference. This helps individuals to see and relate to the differences between themselves and others.

ORGANIZATION

At the Organizational level, JEDDI work requires creating policies and practices that actively serve to change inequitable systems and their results. This applies internally to the workplace and for the creative industries, extends beyond it to their sphere of influence.

INDUSTRY

Responsibility for JEDDI work at the individual and organizational levels is clear, but industry or sector transformation depends on informal committed partnership for formalized collaborative action. The work is to challenge, inform and catalyze wide-ranging change.

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