Posted on: 25 February 2016
This year 13 have been awarded funding from the Trinity Equality Fund. There were many worthwhile and exciting initiatives proposed and all who applied are commended for their commitment to equality and diversity in Trinity. The successful projects will benefit from the from the overall Equality Fund budget of €10,000.
There were over 35 applications to the fund this year. The successful projects include an ‘Equality Champions’ awards programme for clubs and societies, a speaker series on female scholars at risk around the world, an animated video series on LGBT issues, the development of an accessible research archive on the Trinity website, and other relating to themes such as age, religion, mental health, and returning to work or study following a long period of leave.
Trinity’s Equality Fund projects deal with a wide range of equality matters, relating to the nine grounds of discrimination in Irish equality law which include gender, age, civil status, family status, race and ethnicity, membership of the traveller community, disability, sexual orientation and religion and belief, as well as other diversity groups of particular relevance. Among last year’s proposals were projects on opening up higher education to people who have lived in care, and a project supporting students who are recovering from addiction.
Trinity’s Equality Fund is highly effective because it facilitates the promotion of equality and diversity at a grassroots and local level. It is specially designed to facilitate innovative equality projects and those that might otherwise not receive funding. It also promotes staff-student collaboration with such projects being prioritised in the selection process. Funded projects are also chosen for their positive impact on the Trinity community as a whole, and many have benefits for wider Irish society too.
Running since 2008, the Equality Fund exists to promote and celebrate diversity in all areas of the University by enabling locally-run equality initiatives by students and/or staff. The fund is made available to staff and student applications on a competitive basis, and it is allocated as small grants to various projects by a sub-committee of the university’s Equality Committee.
For more information about the Equality Fund visit www.tcd.ie/equality/projects/equality-fund
