Girls Inc. of Metropolitan Dallas is thrilled to be selected as an honoree in the Organization Community Champion Category for Dallas Business Journal’s 2021 Leaders in Diversity Award!
As an organization serving primarily girls of color, diversity, equity, and inclusion has always been an integral part of our programs. We intensified our efforts over the past seven months. Our staff created virtual DEI courses for girls ages 6-14, in response to the anxiety many of our girls were experiencing as they watched protests unfold after the death of George Floyd. In these courses, we created a supportive space for our girls to discuss and process racial equity and social justice issues. We have now expanded this program to high school girls and shared it with our 78 sister affiliates in the Girls Inc. national network.
In addition to the development of these new programs, we provided DEI training for our staff. In June, all staff attended training based on Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Also, we implemented a leadership and hiring inclusion initiative, an intentional effort to increase diversity in our board of directors and staff members. We are proud that two-thirds of our staff are women of color but acknowledge there is always more we can do to increase our diversity in race and ethnicity.
As we strive to address issues of racial equity, we will continue empowering all girls to thrive. Thank you, Dallas Business Journal, for recognizing our work in this critical field!