1st and 2nd October 2015 took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, the Second Meeting of the transnational Diversities@Work project, organized by the Partner Association Generations.
The meeting was attended by all project partners except Prevalia Spanish organization which, unfortunately, because of the economic crisis, has informed the partnership to be forced to abandon the project.
The meeting was focused on the sharing of the first results of desk and field for the detection of the target group needs.
Further analysis of the elements that emerged was essential to know with clarity and transparency, the point of view of entrepreneurs or managers of the companies in relation to the management of diversity within their workplaces and specifically to issues related to diversity ' gender identity and sexual orientation.
In this regard it was interesting to cross these data with those of the workers.
Each partner then presented some data collected in their own country through the administration of on-line questionnaires that had been developed to investigate the existence and type of implementation of Diversity LGBT + in businesses, as well as the way the / workers / trici live that diversity in the workplace.
The difficulties encountered by all partners to reach a significant number of respondents led to the collegial decision to extend the investigation still for at least two months (until December 2015).
During the second meeting day, then, the partners, using a Metaplan (see. Below) prepared by CIRSES, Cora Rome and COOSS Marche, they started the shared work of adaptation of the contents of Crossing Diversity, beginning to assume the parts to be modified , supplement, delete, store the manual and 9 base maps.
They were thus assigned new tasks for each member of the Partnership and fixed deadlines associated with these tasks.
THE MULTIPLIER EVENT
The October 1, 2015 was held the first Multiplier Event project. During the dissemination seminar, in addition to having examined and discussed the first results of the survey conducted on companies and workers, it was presented to the / guests the good practice Crossing Diversity - produced with the Leonardo da Vinci project-TOI "Eurialo" and addressed to schools and to the socio-educational world of work - in order to open a debate on possible changes / adaptations needed to make the product with the relevant business context.
In this reflection, in addition to the / to the representatives of the various partner organizations of the project, we were attended by three privileged witnesses, guests invited by the Bulgarian partners:
- Dr. Valia Dankova, General Manager of Bimec
- Dr. Nadejda Bocheva, associated professor at the Institute of Neurobiology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
- Dr. Simeon Vassilev, CEO and store manager dela Springfiled
- Dr. Nicolas Jocky, African Pride Association member based in Brussels.
The Bulgarians witnesses emphasize that sexual orientation in the Bulgarian labor market is considered a private matter of workers to be relegated to the privacy of individuals, not to the public related to the working environment, so the HR managers and business owners do not pay attention to diversity refers to 'sexual orientation, although they recognize that it can be a social stigma, but deny any relationship to the workplace. . Dr. Jocky asked the two witnesses what was the role of associations representing the LGBT + people in the Bulgarian society in general and in one work in particular (eg trade unions). The Bulgarian entrepreneur stressed that it is still difficult in Bulgaria discuss this issue and that the project Diversitie @ Work is an excellent opportunity to raise awareness among companies and employees on diversity and respect.