Embracing Equity and DigitALL this IWD

Written by Anya Rudolphy, Community Development Project Manager

As part of International Women’s Day (IWD), the Connect team hosted an event with Standard Chartered bringing together female leaders from the business and community sector to network and share learnings on the themes of IWD #EmbraceEquity and #DigitALL.

We asked attendees what barriers their organisations face in digital inclusion. Reflections included the given expectation that people understand new platforms and services, the lack of awareness of new opportunities or resources, and how overwhelming the amount of options are out there to use.

ELBA has continued to develop our digital inclusion programme with over 1000 devices donated in the past year to community organisations in east London and their beneficiaries. We are continuing to develop and expand the opportunities for volunteers to support organisations within this capacity, with recent Salesforce advice and other IT-related volunteer opportunities.

After this discussion we moved on to discussing leadership and challenges for scaling businesses. Below is an image of reflections at the end of the session.

While much has happened in the progression of equality and inclusion for women, we all know there is much more to be done to reach equity and the intersection of women’s equity with racial equity and climate justice. The reflections from ELBA’s event are a reminder of the pressure women continue to put themselves under to achieve it all, but also that many of the systems we work within were developed and still take leadership from men.

If you are interested in being part of future conversations and peer learning opportunities through ELBA, get in touch with anya.rudolphy@elba-1.org.uk

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