About
Did you know that International Pronouns Day is the third Wednesday of October each year or that December 3rd is the International Day of People with Disabilities? In the UK Black History Month is in October, Neurodiversity Celebration Week is in March together with International Women’s Day on the 8th. Across from 28 February to the end of March 2025 members of the Muslim community worldwide will observe Ramadan and June is Pride Month. These are just some of the important dates around celebrating and raising awareness of important religious, cultural, international and health-related events. The OCA & the OCA Student Association believe in building an inclusive and respectful community and we want your help in putting together an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion calendar for 2025.
The brief
We are looking for submissions of work to illustrate and highlight some of these events. We’ve included a comprehensive list below but feel free to research and highlight a date of your choice. Work can be in any medium including creative writing and music, you just tell us how your submission correlates with your chosen event in a sentence or two. Images must be JPG or PNG, 300DPI and original files if possible. Submissions need to be received by 30 November 2024. Please email them to blog@oca.ac.uk. We welcome contributions from across the OCA community including students, alumni, tutors and HQ staff.
Selection process
Work will be selected by members of our OCA EDI Group and we will be seeking student selectors to help out. Where possible we will include an image submission together with a writing/music submission for each month and submissions will be published on the OCA Student Association blog and Instagram. A digital copy will be made available across the OCA community. View the 2024 EDI Calendar here.
Suggested events to research
This list is not exhaustive and we encourage you to reflect on your own identity and cultural experiences whilst choosing a celebration or observance to base your submission on. There are likely to be many more that we have missed out in this list. Please feel free to research any dates that are more relevant to your life. Please be respectful and mindful of any community you may be portraying, seek permission/consent if necessary and check your bias before sending. We will not accept submissions which express prejudice and discrimination, and reserve the right to refuse submissions.
January
World Braille Day - 4th
World Religion Day - 19th
Martin Luther King Jr Day - 20th
Holocaust Memorial Day - 27th
Lunar New Year - 29th
February
LGBT History Month - UK only
International Day of Women and Girls in Science - 11th
March
Women’s History Month
Zero Discrimination Day - 1st
International Women’s Day - 8th
Purim - 13th - 14th
Neurodiversity Celebration Week - 17th-23rd
Eid al-Fitr - 30th - 31st
Trans Day of Visibility - 31st
April
Autism Acceptance Month
Passover - 12th - 20th
Lesbian Visibility Week - 21st - 27th
May
International Workers Day - 1st
Deaf Awareness Week - 5th - 11th
Mental Health Awareness Week - 12th - 18th
International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) - 17th
Global Accessibility Awareness Day - 15th
June
Pride Month - Celebrated worldwide
Autistic Pride Day - 18thWindrush Day - 22nd
Stonewall Riot Anniversary - 28th
July
Disability Pride Month
Non-Binary People’s Day - 14th
South Asian Heritage Month - 18 Jul - 17th Aug
August
South Asian Heritage Month 18 Jul - 17th Aug
United Nations Indigenous Day - 9th
Ganesh Chaturthi - 26th - 27th
September
International Day of Peace - 21st
Bisexual Pride Day - 23rd
Rosh Hashanah - 22nd - 24th
October
Black History Month - UK
ADHD Awareness Month
Yom Kippur - 1st - 2nd
World Dyslexia Day - 8th
National Coming Out Day - 11th
International Pronouns Day - 15th
World Menopause Day - 18th
Diwali - 20th
November
Stress Awareness Day - 5th
Transgender Day of Remembrance - 20th
December
World AIDS Day - 1st
International Day of People with Disabilities - 3rd
Hanukkah - 14th - 22nd
Kwanzaa - 26th-1st Jan
Submissions need to be received by 30 November 2024. Please email them to blog@oca.ac.uk. Thank you!
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