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City Launches Mayor Keller’s Equity Training Initiative

Series of equity trainings for City employees designed to foster culture change.

January 31, 2020

The City of Albuquerque today announced the 2020 Equity Training Initiative for city employees to enhance the role of local government in dismantling institutional inequity and building more inclusive and equitable practices.

The series of trainings will be scheduled each month of 2020 and will include workshops such as Racial Equity 101, Implicit Bias, Language Access, Safe Zone training, Transgender 101, and Disability Awareness and Undoing Racism©, a national curriculum.

“This is important work we are continuing to commit staff time and resources toward,” said Mayor Tim Keller. “We’re doing this work to make both City Hall and all of our city services for Albuquerque residents more equitable. Building understanding among city employees is a step in changing the culture of how government addresses racism.”

Last year, more than 1,000 city employees, including all new APD cadets, attended one of several workshops: Anti-Racism training, Racial Equity 101, Cultural Competency, Implicit Bias, Safe Zone training, Transgender 101 and Disability Awareness. This year, the workshops will be offered on a recurring monthly or quarterly basis.

Giovianna Burrell, who was hired in September as the City Office of Equity and Inclusion’s Communications and Culture Change Leader, said her goal is to create educational spaces for City employees to learn, dialogue, and connect equity concepts to their everyday work.

“Through trainings and culture change, City departments and employees will be inspired and equipped to identify and implement equitable and inclusive work practices and behaviors to dismantle oppressive systems and foster equitable outcomes.”

The City is partnering with community organizations and members who are leaders in their fields, including the Government Alliance on Race and Equity, to provide high-quality workshops grounded in lived experiences of people who are most impacted by inequity.

Some of the workshops will be facilitated by trainers associated with the Center for Social Sustainable Systems (CESOSS), a South Valley-based non-profit, while other workshops will be given by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), a national organization that is committed to Undoing Racism©.  Staff from the Office of Equity and Inclusion will co-facilitate and lead all the trainings. This training initiative is funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.