Ensure cultural safety

Taking action for cultural safety

Extract from the book 'The Relationship is the Project' on Cultural Safety and an overview of its four core principles:

1. Critical Self-Reflection
2. Engaged Communication
3. Minimised Power Imbalances
4. Decolonised Practice

'Cultural safety helps us develop different ways of thinking and talking about discrimination and then act to effect change.'

SBS Cultural Safety Plan – Template

SBS, Australia's national diverse broadcaster, requires production companies working on programs which focus on under-represented communities to provide a Cultural Safety Plan which outlines the production company’s commitment to meaningful collaboration with relevant under-represented communities and its plan to create an inclusive environment.

SBS provides this Cultural Safety Plan Template to assist productions companies.

Reflecting Value, Episode 3: Whose safe spaces?

This podcast asks questions about barriers to access that are being created in the intersections between culture, health and research. It also present ideas on how to enable "a diverse range of people to fully participate in cultural programmes designed to address health and wellbeing needs?"

Maya Cares

Explore and report incidents of racism using a chatbot developed by women of colour.

'We believe that by empowering women to respond to and report racism, we can create a more just and equitable society.'

Beyond The Toolkit: Ethical Commitments

Facilitation is not a neutral practice. Beyond the toolkit encourage practitioners to ask "What are the ethical commitments or values that guide your work?" Beyond The Toolkit are a team of community-based and academic community-engaged practitioners who have been interested in creating a dialogue about facilitation, participatory design and social justice across a number of fields.

The film industry has a gatekeeping problem

Oluwaseun Babalola describes her experiences in the film industry: "I’ve found that when I’ve pitched work in the past that there’s a lot of emphasis on diversity and all this stuff about authenticity, but that same authenticity is based on what gatekeepers think is authentic. Usually, when it comes to Black and African stories they want things rooted in trauma – which isn’t necessarily a story you want to tell."

Illustration by Paola De La Cruz.

Making Safe Spaces at the Australian Film, Television & Radio School’s Talent Camp

Sometimes telling your story can expose the most raw and vulnerable parts of yourself – so a safe space is essential. Talent Camp works with emerging creatives from diverse communities. Their stories are timely and compelling, but telling them can bring up experiences of discrimination, injustice and trauma.

Strategies to ensure safety include mental health first aid training for facilitators, quiet spaces for participants and a solid group agreement to articulate shared accuntabilities.

B.O.S.S. Calls Turner Prize Nomination ‘Extractive and Exploitative’

A statement from the Black Obsidian Sound System that calls out institutions, prize-culture and demands the rights to thrive in conditions that a nurturting and supportive - forging a better path ahead in the future for collaborations between institutions and collectives that pratice social art.

Fostering a Safe Space with Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra

To create a safe space in his 20-piece Queensland ensemble, Obscure Orchestra, Matt Tsu makes the safe space explicit, paying everyone equally and ensuring minoritised artists lead.

“Can you play your instrument? Cool. But do we align when it comes to anti-racism, being allies to queer, non-binary, trans people? Are we pro-refugees coming here and making a home for themselves? That sort of thing.”

Fostering Inclusive Success

Dahlia Books is an independent press based in Leicester that champions regional and diverse voices and provides a platform for original fiction and writers who are ignored by the mainstream.

Their leading programme is The Middle Way Mentoring Programme, a two-year professional development project that supports Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers. The program helps participants to examine the craft and the journey a writer needs to take to be published and become a professional creative.

Suriya Women’s Development Centre

Suriya Women’s Development Centre has been working with women in Sri Lanka since 1990 with the aim to create an equitable and peaceful society which treats women with dignity.

The key attributes of Suriya's cultural activism are:
* Integrating cultural activism into programs
* Applying culturally appropriate methods
* Adopting a collaborative creative development process
* Building a resilient community arts practice

Collaborative performances with migrant women

Tu cuerpo/El mío (Your Body/My Body) is a series of creative works featuring performance, action, texts and videos that are collaboratively created by women from migrant and non-migrant backgrounds.

"Tu cuerpo/El mío provides support and generates empathy through artistic exchange. The project stems from individual problems of exclusion, migration, poverty, machismo, racism and xenophobia. It responds by presenting society with collective artistic, collaboration and networks of support."

Jordan’s National Centre for Culture and Arts

The National Centre for Culture and Arts of King Hussein Foundation (NCCA) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation. Its objective is to incorporate performing arts in all levels of education, to encourage change in creativity and humanitarian values and cross-cultural understanding and to bring about social change. NCCA has been a pioneer in the development of dance and theatre in Jordan and in the region.

Recovering lost history through theatre

Made in Nigeria is a theatre performance that educates communities about their lost history, and spreads the message of unity in diversity, hope and civic responsibility.

‘It is TOTAL THEATRE – dance, drama, music, art, fashion and, of course, poetry – that come together to tell the story of our 108 years of shared history. All told in 120 minutes that will pass sooner than you think.’ - Dike Chukwumerije, founder, Made in Nigeria

Cultural immersion for young people through dance

At Nigeria's prestigious Hadiza Ibrahim Aliyu Schools Festival, performers are required to present a dance from a different cultural group, fostering engagement and understanding across the nation’s 450-plus ethnicities.

“We want to accommodate these cultural and ethnic diversities and see how we can harness them for our growth and the unity of Nigeria” - Makama Shekwo’aga, Festival Curator

Embracing diversity through food in multicultural Malaysia

In Malaysia, Arts-ED’s ‘You Think You Can Masak’ (‘Cook’) program bring together young people to learn about their own, their friends’ and their community’s cultural beliefs and practices through food.

"One of the program’s main goals was to highlight the similarities, not just the differences, in the variety of dishes and cooking styles through shared ingredients."