Oxford Dictionary:

• Diverse: of different kinds
• Diversify: involve yourself in different kinds of things
• Diversion: divert something from its course, an alternative route for traffic when a road is closed.
• Diversity: variety

Diversity is about the differences that can be found in a multicultural group. These differences are what ultimately make people different and unique.

In learning to accept the challenge that diversity brings, it is possible for us all to develop a mindset conducive to diversity. Both Biological and Cultural differences exist amongst all people and it is often the physical aspects that we accept more readily. Biological differences depend on what we make of them, but culture runs deeper and because it is more difficult to understand, it is more difficult to accept.

Knowledge however, brings understanding, and throughout our training intervention we aim to encourage you to improve your understanding of each other. In so doing we will learn to appreciate, value and accept each other’s differences.

Excerpt from Cultural Considerations by Guy Macleod

In 1994, South Africa became a democracy when all people in South Africa, irrespective of their ethnic group, culture, language or religion, participated on an equal footing to elect the first democratically elected government in the country’s history. The end of the political dominance of the majority by a minority, elitist group of white people of colonialist stock opened the doors to the massive task of leveling the playing field by removing racially-based legislation from the stature books of South Africa.

After 1994 all remaining racially based discriminatory legislation was scrapped and new legislation has steadily been introduced to ensure that past inequities and imbalances in the workplace especially are rapidly corrected. This legislation includes, for example:

• The Labour Relations Act (LRA), 1995, which covers all employees except the National Defence Force and aims to promote orderly collective bargaining.
  The Basic Conditions of Employment Act, 1997, which sets out new minimum employment standards for most people employed in the private sector.
• The Employment Equity Act, 1998, which aims to remove unfair discrimination by establishing fair employment practices and to implement affirmative action to advance all people that were previously discriminated against on the grounds of colour, gender and physical capability.
• The Prevention and Prohibition of Unfair dismissal Act, 1999, which outlaws racism and all forms of discrimination.

Whilst the new South Africa, aided by legislation, is rapidly unfolding in the workplace, socially based attitudes and norms will take longer to adjust to the realities of a non-racial, democratic South Africa, norms and behaviour never do change quickly.

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter: I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”

Nelson Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom

Written by:
Norine Victor and Lianne Smuts
1st Solutions
www.1stSolutions.co.za