Our commitment to anti-racism 

London Youth is a charity on a mission to improve the lives of young Londoners. Our vision is that all young Londoners live happy, healthy, safe and fulfilled lives.

We know that Young Londoners are facing several significant and connected challenges.  A significant challenge they face is racism and the direct and indirect negative impact racism has on their opportunities to live happy, healthy, safe and fulfilled lives. This challenge is a key driver of our commitment to anti-racism as an organisation and as individuals.

Our organisational principle of honesty means that we have taken an honest look at our own internal practices too, our board and employee demographics, our people processes and the outcomes for different groups in London Youth. We know that we also have work to do internally to be an effective anti-racist organisation and a diverse and inclusive employer. We want a London Youth that is inclusive, a London Youth where everyone:

  • Feels able to be themselves at work
  • Feels like they have a voice
  • Feels a sense of belonging
  • Feels that there is a desire for shared understanding
  • Feels empowered to speak up and bring issues and concerns to the table
  • Feels supported to deliver our vision for London’s youth

An anti-racist London Youth – Our Principles

We know that being an anti-racist organisation is a significant commitment which depends on all our team members making the right decisions on a personal, professional and organisational level. To support us in delivering our anti-racist commitment we will follow a set of guiding principles.

As an anti-racist employer we will:

  • Listen to our team members
  • Support and encourage our team members to speak up and speak out against racism
  • Engage and involve people of colour in all our decision making
  • Strive to achieve equality of outcomes in all our people processes (recruitment, development, promotion etc), setting targets and monitoring progress towards their achievement
  • Empower all our team members to adopt anti-racist principles and hold them accountable for doing so
  • Mitigate the impact of racism by adopting a positive action approach

As an anti-racist organisation we will also: 

  • Take an organisation-wide approach, collaborating across London Youth to ensure that our anti-racist commitment and principles are applied across all areas and levels in the organisations
  • Reflect our role as a membership organisation and actively sharing our commitment to anti-racism externally, this includes learning from and sharing learning with our membership
  • Demonstrate our commitment to continually doing better by setting targets, striving towards achieving them and sharing our progress internally and externally
  • Support and collaborate with all our stakeholders as we take this journey, making positive changes in all we do
  • Continue to learn, evolve and demonstrate our principle of improvement, accepting that we may make mistakes along the way.

We know that we are on a journey. We are committed to taking this journey with our people, our members, our partners and everyone who London Youth engages with. We commit to holding ourselves accountable by providing regular updates and news as we progress on our journey.

We will continue as we learn, as we grow and as we improve. We will continue until racism is no longer a significant challenge for young Londoners and our society as a whole. We will continue until all young Londoners are able to live happy, healthy, safe and fulfilled lives.