According to the dictionary, the definition of “diversity” is “the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.” Though there may be different interpretations of the definition, the underlying message is that we should embrace it. Embrace Diversity. Embrace what makes each of us unique.
Our client approached us as she was tasked with coming up with a unique team building event to celebrate the diversity of her team. We assumed that she wanted to celebrate the different ethnic backgrounds, genders, sexual orientation, etc., as what has been a typical request. To our surprise, she had something else in mind.
Her team wanted to celebrate and touch upon all the significant celebrations for the month of October so that they would be aware of all the significant diverse events that are being celebrated that month, including special days. We did not know there was so much to celebrate the month of October until we did our research for our proposal.
It turns out October is not just all about Halloween. There are many significant and important initiatives that last throughout the month, such as Hispanic Heritage Month, Filipino American Heritage Month, Italian American Heritage Month, Bullying Awareness Month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Disability Awareness Month, and the like.
We recognized that some of these initiatives were on the serious side, so we were challenged to do it in a fun way since our events are typically designed to be all about fun and laughter. How could we make these ‘dark’ topics educational and yet fun at the same time?
Our events are typically comprised of 7-8 different activities that get players engaged
throughout the event. So what we did was for each activity, we made sure that each initiative was addressed. The host would introduce each activity with a short explanation of the initiative. For example, for the activity related to Bullying Awareness Month, we not only had the host explain how to play the activity, but we also had the host explain what is involved in Bullying Awareness Month.
Though we were not able to address all the important month long initiatives and notable days in October, we were able to address most of the ones that the client wanted highlighted. All in all, we think it was a success!
If you're thinking of ways to educate your team about a topic in a fun way, while at the same time building camaraderie, we can put together an event for you. Whether it be acknowledging the different celebrations of a particular month, or delve into a topic of interest, we can make it work.
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