How we celebrated Pride 2024

- Our first colleague Pride event

Our LGBTQ+ network group, Pride in Progress, hosted our very first Pride event. Our offices and home workspaces across the UK were decorated to mark and celebrate Pride, and teams took the opportunity to learn more about the LGBTQ+ community and the challenges they still face.

You can watch and hear more from our colleagues, here: https://loom.ly/yAm9Z-Y

Our guest speaker Christian Owens, GenderSpace founder, delivered a thought-provoking, moving and inspirational trans awareness lunch and learn session on his personal journey to becoming his true self and invited us to walk in his shoes. Christian's talk reignited conversation about understanding the impact on people's mental health, how we can be trans allies, increase visible representation and listen to and uplift trans voices.

Our Group Chief Executive Jacqui De-Rose, said: "Thank you, Christian, for really highlighting the importance of education, providing support, and being kind. Christian’s personal story and experience is truly inspiring and encourages us all to have conversations to understand and support people in our society."

Carina Lynch our Head of Performance and Planning, & Pride in Progress Lead, said: "Christian's talk couldn't be more timely. There has been so much learning and discussion as a result already following Christian's talk, and I’m sure there are a lot of people reflecting on such a powerful story."

We also shared Andrew's story, our tenant & Progress Lifeline customer, who spoke to us about coming out in the 1980s, why Pride visibility is still so important, and about living with his husband, John, in their Progress home:
Andrew said: "From day one, when we applied for and signed the tenancy agreement with Progress, we've felt accepted as a couple. We felt confident straight away that we could live freely as John and Andy."

You can read Andrew's interview, here: https://loom.ly/SfUAlRA


- Continually making progress
We might have come to the end of June 2024, and therefore, the end of Pride Month, but we want our workspaces and culture to be inclusive all year round - for our people to feel like they belong and can be themselves at work.

So, we say goodbye to Pride Month for another year. Still, our commitment to growing as an inclusive organisation and to promoting equality, diversity, and a culture that actively values difference, continues.

You can keep up to date with our equality, diversity and inclusion journey, here: https://loom.ly/vnaE1T4