Pride matters
With just five days to go before this weekend’s Pride in London parade and UK Black Pride (UKBP), colleagues up and down the country are getting ready to celebrate in the capital.
The UK’s largest and most diverse pride – the Pride in London Parade, which takes place this Saturday 7 July, provides a platform for the LGBT+ community to raise awareness of LGBT+ issues and campaign for the freedoms to allow them to live their lives on a genuinely equal footing.
Pride in London gives the LGBT+ community the chance to be visible and speak loudly to the rest of the world about what they have achieved, how far they have come and what is still needed.
The parade sets off from Portland Place at midday, moving down Oxford Circus, along Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus, Lower Regent Street, Pall Mall and then passing Trafalgar Square before finishing on Whitehall.
UKBP promotes unity and co-operation among all black people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern and Latin American descent, as well as their friends and families, who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The UKBP Festival, ‘Shades of the Diaspora’, takes place on Sunday 8 July in London’s Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
Sign up today for Pride in London and UKBP if you haven’t already booked your place by emailing pride@royalmail.com
IT director for channels and customer experience and BAME (black, Asian, minority ethnic) steering group chair Dharmini Chauhan, said: ‘It’s really important that Royal Mail is supporting Black Pride. Growing up in the 1980s and 90s I was hard pushed to find role models that reflected who I was – an ambitious working class gay woman with Indian heritage, who was also an avid fan of Radio 4 and especially The Archers!
‘It was at university that I really examined how we perceive identity and the discomfort of being ‘pigeon-holed’. We are all complex, wonderful, unique beings and that should be celebrated. As one of my favourite writers, Audre Lorde, said: “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
‘The Royal Mail BAME network are proud to be supporting Black Pride with our LGBT+&Friends steering group this Sunday 8 July. It is hugely important that we become positive role models for others and work toward establishing a more inclusive society.’
As one of the UK’s largest employers, we are committed to putting equality and diversity at the heart of our business. This year, as well as taking part in the Pride in London parade and UK Black Pride we will also be attending Pride events in Belfast and Leeds.
All Royal Mail colleagues and their friends and family are invited to celebrate the below Pride events on behalf of the company:
- Pride in London – 7 July
- Black Pride – 8 July
- Belfast – 4 August
- Leeds – 5 August
Join us
We want people to sign-up to attend the Pride of your choice as early as possible as places are capped. To secure your places, please email pride@royalmail.com with your name, the number of people attending with you, which Pride you would like to attend and whether you would like to be on our float.
