'The Rainbow Quarterly is a fun way to raise visibility of LGBTQI+ all year round'
This pride month, Vodafone NZ are proud to share what they do all year round to make the company inclusive of all gender identities and sexualities in Aotearoa, according to the company’s Rainbow Whānau Chairperson, Darren Mendonsa.
“Businesses have an important role to play in fostering social change, and that begins with our people being able to be their authentic selves at work,” added Mendonsa.
Indeed, Vodafone is celebrating Pride Month by spreading goodwill across Aotearoa in support of the LGBTQI+ community, as part of its commitment to diversity and inclusion.
The Vodafone Rainbow Whānau, the company’s LGBTQI+ employee committee with more than 300 members and allies, will be present at Big Gay Out on 9 February for the second year running, and the Wellington Pride Youth Ball on 29 February.
Vodafone’s Rainbow Whānau committee started in 2015 and runs Vodafone’s LGBTQI+ activities with support from the executive team and other stakeholders across the business.
The Rainbow Whānau along with the company’s social channels will have a more LGBTQI+ inclusive presence through activities and initiatives they are proud of via @VodafoneNZ on Instagram, Snapchat and the Vodafone New Zealand Facebook page.
“I’m incredibly grateful and proud to be part of an organisation whose leadership empowers us to make decisions, have thought-provoking conversations and create change through gender pronoun recognition on our work signatures, lunch and learn sessions and our quarterly LGBTQI+ focused newsletter, Rainbow Quarterly,” said Mendonsa.
Vodafone NZ and the Rainbow Whānau recently started the quarterly LGBTQI+ focused newsletter, Rainbow Quarterly, written by staff for staff.
Hannah Copeland, one of the Rainbow Whānau Leads and Editor of Rainbow Quarterly said, she is incredibly grateful to be supported and encouraged to work on passion projects like the Rainbow Quarterly by my team at Vodafone.
“The Rainbow Quarterly is a fun way to raise visibility of LGBTQI+ all year round and share our community with our colleagues and allies. The internal reaction to the first and second issues has been overwhelmingly positive which has been amazing.”
The company said they have a zero-tolerance stance for discrimination based on gender identity or sexuality, and works closely leading diversity and inclusion organisations including InsideOUT, Rainbow Tick and Diversity Works NZ on the development of materials and programmes for each of its initiatives.
Vodafone said that this embedded culture of inclusion that values and leverages the diversity of its people allows the company to better serve its customers and community.
