Diversity

When you hear the word diversity what what do you think of as a definition? According to Merriam-Webster, diversity is defined as "the condition of having or being composed of differing elements : variety; especially : the inclusion of different types of people (as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization."

The definition of diversity is much more in depth than just describing it as being the inclusion of different types of people in a group or organization.  Diversity is much more than that to me and to many other people.  It is so simple to say that in order to be diverse you need to include all people, but in reality it is much more than inclusion.  It is much more about fostering and generating understanding within the community that you live in.  The community one lives in is much more broad than the geographic community they reside in.  An individual is a part of more than one team.  If someone works at a place of employment they are a part of the community within the employees within that place of employment.  At the same time they are part of a different community within their network of peers and friends.  

With that being said there are many factors that go into an individuals understanding of what diversity means.  As I am from a small rural community in Northern New York, the understanding of diversity is much different by the general population than what it would be in somewhere else (i.e. a larger metropolitan city).  Where I come from, the population is above 90 percent Caucasian, English speaking, Christians.  Speaking with one of my good friends here who is African American and is from the U.S. Virgin Islands mentioned that where he is from Caucasian is within the minority and African American,Afro-Caribbean, and Hispanics being the clear cut majority.  This just adds perspective to the issue at hand.  Diversity and its understanding is all situational and based on vastly different levels of background and understanding (or mis-understanding in some cases).  

The last two days we focused on going through diversity training.  As a group Team Green learned a lot about ourselves as individuals and as a team as a whole.  We all come from vastly different experiences.  We all have different backgrounds and upbringings.  Some of us are from cities, some from rural areas, some of us are one religion, others are of a different religious belief, while others are spiritual but do not identify as being a particular religion.  Some of us have vastly different exposure and experience with issues surrounding the LGBT community.  While we all have had varying levels of difference and diversity in those aspects, we also have vastly different levels of exposure to other cultures and other beliefs than what they were brought up with.  Even though we have all come from many different places and backgrounds we have all managed to come together and have worked so well together and are constantly learning from one another.  It is truly inspirational working with this diverse group of people I am proud to call part of my Team Green family now.      

I am extremely grateful that I pushed myself and I exposed myself to a vast number of diverse cultural, religions, and geographic experiences that allows me to be much more open-minded than what some people are that are from small communities.  Lets work together to break stereotypes.  An inspirational quote I took away from the day and a half of diversity training is as follows: 
"Saying that you are color blind is not the right approach to go with, we need to understand that part of who a person is, revolves around their varying ethnic, demographic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds."  

People are who they are today because of who they were in the past.  Everyone learns from their past experiences and takes a little bit out of each life experience. 

While I learned a great deal of material while in this training which included conflict management, meeting facilitation, becoming an ally, and so many more little things.  The most important take away from this experience was not the material but the experience and the exposure to the astounding amount of courage was exhibited by so many people in this training.  Even further than that, I feel as if I have so much greater of an understanding of everyone who I am lucky enough to work with over the course of the next 11 months.  I also feel much more understanding of some of the pieces that go into this puzzle.   

I have a much greater understanding of the great people that I am going to be working with over the course of the next 11 months.  I'm so impressed with each and every person's willingness to try new things and open up to each other.  We have come together to form a united front in Team Green!  I look forward to what the future holds for us.