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. In April 2022 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 Equality, Diversity and Inclusion calendar for 2022.
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 17 December 2021. Please email them to Milly Lozinski one of our OCA EDI Reps - milly525277@oca.ac.uk. We'd love to see contributions from across the OCA community including students, alumni, tutors and head office staff.
Selection process
Work will be selected by members of our OCA EDI & Accessibility Reps. We will include an image submission together with a writing/music submission for each month and all submissions will be published on the OCA Student Association blog. We will print and send physical copies to all selected artists and a digital copy will be made available across the OCA community. Keep track of your OCA coursework deadlines, upcoming study events and reflect on our diverse transnational community of students.
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 - 16th Martin Luther King Jr Day - 17th Holocaust Memorial Day - 27th
February LGBT History Month - UK only Chinese New Year - 1st International Day of Women and Girls in Science - 11th March Women’s History Month Zero Discrimination Day - 1st International Women’s Day - 8th Purim - 16th-17th Neurodiversity Celebration Week - 21st-27th Trans Day of Visibility - 31st
April Autism Acceptance Month Passover - 15th-22nd Ramadan - 2nd-1st May Lesbian Visibility Day - 26th
May International Workers Day - 1st Eid al-Fitr - 2nd-3rd Deaf Awareness Week - 2nd-8th Mental Health Awareness Week - 9-15th International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) - 17th Global Accessibility Awareness Day - 19th
June Pride Month - Celebrated worldwide Autistic Pride Day - 18th Windrush Day - 22nd Stonewall Riot Anniversary - 28th
July Indigenous People’s Day (USA) - 4th Eid al-Adha - 9th-10th Non-Binary People’s Day - 14th Drag Day - 16th
August South Asian Heritage Month Ganesh Chaturthi - 31st
September Bisexual Awareness Week - 17th-24th International Day of Peace - 21st Bisexual Pride Day - 23rd Rosh Hashanah - 25th-27th
October Black History Month - UK ADHD Awareness Month World Dyslexia Day - 4th Yom Kippur - 4th-5th National Coming Out Day - 11th International Pronouns Day - 19th Diwalli - 24th
November Transgender Day of Rememberance - 20th
December Native American Heritage Month World AIDS Day - 1st International Day of People with Disabilities - 3rd Kwanzaa - 26th-1st Jan
I put my submission in the gallery