Equality

Call for Action

The Vantaa Street Dance Association has received a Call For Action letter from a group of creative industry BIPOC actors and their white allies (BIPOC = Black, Indigenous, and People of Color).

The letter challenges us to participate in dismantling all forms of racism and to integrate anti-racist work as a core part of all our activities. Some of our staff were also involved in signing the letter before it was sent to various institutions. We consider anti-racist work extremely important because our association’s activities focus heavily on street dance styles that originate from Black culture.

The Vantaa Street Dance Association (VKTY) is a non-profit, street dance-focused organization based in Vantaa. VKTY was founded in 2014, and its activities include dance classes, courses, and workshops, training for dance teachers and coaches, as well as national and international dance events and competitions.

We recognize that discussions about equality, diversity, and anti-racism could and should be conducted more deeply and extensively than so far, and that these discussions should involve the association’s board, staff, and members alike. Discussions have taken place in board meetings and, depending on the instructor, during dance classes. It would be appropriate to make these discussions an active part of the association’s operations and to create guidelines and practices for all levels of activity.

• Some staff members have used their own time for anti-racism and cultural sensitivity training, and some have actively participated in public discussions within the dance community. Some have also organized public training sessions on these topics. We aim to listen to staff members who are trained and knowledgeable in these themes to help us develop our activities in a better direction going forward.
• At the board level and within the working group, we have familiarized ourselves with the Equality Act.
• In cooperation with the City of Vantaa, we have organized hobby activities aimed at low-income children during school days.
• We have provided free activities for children and youth.
• We have strived to keep participation costs at a reasonable level.
• We have gender-neutral toilets and a dressing room in our facility.
• There is a feedback box on-site where feedback can be left anonymously.
• We have made efforts to create dance class descriptions on our website that respectfully honor the roots of different dance styles. The descriptions include information about the history of the dance styles as well as their cultural contexts.
• We have invited street dance experts from several different countries as guest teachers.
• The majority of these guest teachers have been BIPOC individuals. They have been compensated according to their requests for their work. This has been done to ensure that our teachers, members, and other professionals and enthusiasts in Finland’s street dance community can study street dance styles with as little “whitewashing” as possible.
• We have supported families in financial distress with participation fees.

Our thoughts on VKTY’s activities according to the call for action letter’s topics

Here we aim to highlight the key issues we have identified as well as the planned or considered measures.

Inclusivity and Safer Space

To promote inclusivity, VKTY must create an equality plan. We have considered developing and implementing a human rights plan that would combine equality and gender equality plans. If our financial situation allows, the goal is to consult an external expert in drafting the plan. Should the financial situation require it, the plan can initially be developed internally and later reviewed by an external expert.

We do not have a designated equality officer. In practice, the administrative staff handles the equality officer’s duties, as they are the designated contact person for safer space issues. In addition to the administrative staff, the chairperson of VKTY’s board can also be contacted regarding safer space matters.

We do not tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment. Our goal is to address all known cases of discrimination or harassment, providing assistance and support in challenging situations. If a member, student, or employee experiences discrimination or harassment, they can approach the executive director or the chairperson, who will assist in handling the matter both confidentially with the affected person and, if desired, together with the person responsible for the discrimination or harassment. If the case involves a minor, parents will also be contacted.

VKTY aims to design a clear protocol to guide actions in such cases, which will be accessible to all members and employees. Racism, discrimination, and harassment are actively addressed. The experiences of those who have faced racism or other forms of discrimination and harassment are taken seriously, and it is assumed that raising such issues reflects real experiences.

Recruitment

The staff has never been exclusively white, though it has mostly been so. Since the beginning, our teaching staff has included ethnically and linguistically diverse individuals based on their qualifications. Recruitment has thus reflected the values underpinning our operations. We are considering how to further develop recruitment practices. Training for those responsible for recruitment in anti-discriminatory hiring methods could be one step toward more equitable recruitment.

Both the board and administrative staff are committed to personal anti-racist work, which has started with familiarization and independent study of the subject. Reflecting on and developing our own operations is a necessary condition for recruitment (and other organizational processes) to genuinely promote inclusivity and diversity in a way that does not inadvertently cause harm.

Dismantling Pervasive Whiteness in Institutions

We recognize that we are an organization that both values, wants to promote, and enable Black culture, and at the same time benefits from it. Whiteness (not as skin color but as a societal and cultural dominant concept) inevitably exists in our activities. Therefore, it must be consciously dismantled as a power structure to ensure that working and participating here is equal for everyone.

One planned measure is sharing information and providing tools already during new employee orientation. The teacher info package can include a section on equality, diversity, anti-racism, and VKTY’s related actions and principles. Investing in teacher training on equality, diversity, and anti-racism is a key way to embed knowledge and practices into the association’s structures. Teaching is one of the most direct channels of influence we have. Another way to increase knowledge and competence among teachers is to facilitate joint discussions by providing time and space.

If financially feasible, a variety of literature and other materials will be procured for staff to support independent learning.

Public Engagement and Audience Outreach

Questions related to public engagement and audience outreach can be considered through our student body. Our activities primarily reach children, youth, and adults from Vantaa and the Helsinki metropolitan area. The majority of our students are white, and our activities are accessible to able-bodied individuals. We believe our lower-than-average participation fees for dance activities in the Helsinki metropolitan area make our activities accessible also to low-income individuals.

Developing accessibility in various ways is an important goal. One idea has been to create groups for different target audiences, but in the long term, we should consider how different groups can be included in all our activities. Developing accessibility starts from the goal of enabling participation for everyone—not forcing participation in our particular way of operating.

Representation and Content

The content produced by our organization consists of 1) competition performances by training groups, 2) show performances by hobby groups, and 3) photo and video material on social media (mostly recordings of 1 and 2). We have not provided teachers or coaches with guidelines on curating this content. We believe that investing in teacher training is the primary way to influence the content visible in our association’s activities.

Communication and Transparency

Decision-making is the responsibility of the board, which is elected at the association’s annual meeting. All members are invited to the annual meeting, where they have voting rights and can thus influence the composition of the board.

Practical planning and implementation of activities are the responsibility of the executive director, whose work is supervised by the board. The executive director and board also plan activities together, and in decision-making, teachers and office staff are consulted on various matters. There is a plan to make board meeting minutes available to members, but a platform for this has not yet been created. Decisions are communicated to members through newsletters, and social media channels and the website are also used to publicly share key decisions.

It has been customary to collect feedback from members annually through a feedback survey. In 2020, the survey was not conducted due to resource shortages caused by the coronavirus situation. It has always been possible to respond to the survey anonymously or by name, and staff have also been able to participate. Feedback from staff and members has been used to develop activities. Feedback has also come through other channels, and when necessary, we have discussed issues with the member or employee who provided feedback. If we act wrongly, we publicly apologize and seek ways to ensure the same mistake is not repeated. Some of the current measures promoting equality have been introduced based on received feedback.

We have publicly communicated the funding we have received (grants, projects, support). Such communication typically includes, for example, social media posts naming the funder and thanking them for the support.

We strive to use inclusive language in communication. Plans also include developing the website to be clearer and increasing communication in other languages. Currently, we primarily communicate in Finnish and English.

Accessibility

The space we rent exclusively for our use and the halls rented from the City of Vantaa are not all accessible. For example, our own space does not allow wheelchair movement, and general instructions are not available in languages other than Finnish. Our goal is to improve the accessibility of our facilities within the resources available to us.

Within a few years, we will need to find new premises, where we can aim to implement better accessibility than currently. We have added a section on accessibility to our website for communication purposes. The content of this page is being developed in accordance with guidelines from the Finnish Association of People with Physical Disabilities.

In Conclusion

We want to emphasize that VKTY’s work to promote equality and diversity continues actively. We welcome feedback and ideas for development. We also look forward to learning about other institutions’ practices related to developing anti-racist methods.

This text was prepared by VKTY’s chair of board (at the time) and teacher Lilli Huttula and executive director (at the time) Anni Puuperä. In addition to them, members of VKTY’s anti-racist working group have participated in the discussions.