Council Member Sophie Eaden tells us about the importance of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in our profession
Have you heard of EDI? It stands for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. When we’re putting EDI into practice our environment becomes fairer, we celebrate people’s differences and individuals feel welcome and valued. But why should we as equine veterinary professionals care about this?
Data from the recruitment and retention survey BEVA ran in 2022 show that around a third of respondents believed that they were the victims of discrimination from colleagues.
When someone mentions the word discrimination your thoughts might immediately jump to racism or homophobia. While these are indeed forms of discrimination, rather unpleasant ones at that, the term actually covers a much larger area. Under the Equality Act 2010 there are nine different protected characteristics, these being: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, gender and sexual orientation. To treat anyone less favourably because of one of these characteristics would count as discrimination.
We all have protected characteristics, some of us might just be less likely to be discriminated against than others. However, this can change: an injury or illness might leave you with a disability, you might become a parent or ultimately many of us start out young and we all get old…
So by working to improve EDI within the profession, we not only make it more welcoming to the next generation but we also ensure that those currently in it are treated fairly. Surely doing this benefits all of us?