Legal Leaders for Diversity and Inclusion – April, 2018

“On this World Autism Awareness Day, let us all play a part in changing attitudes toward persons with autism and in recognizing their rights as citizens, who, like everyone else, are entitled to claim those rights and make decisions for their lives in accordance with their own will and preferences.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres

Best Wishes for April!  Today is World Autism Awareness Day.

Welcome to our newest signatory, Lynn Korbak, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Toromount Industries Ltd.  We are now well over 120 members strong!

We have tentatively set June 20 for our annual celebration.  Mark your calendar for late that afternoon.  An invitation will be send out later this month.

Women in Power. Women in Politics has been confirmed for May 10.  If you have not received an invitation, please get in touch with Sarah Qadeer (Sarah_Qadeer@homedepot.com).  It will be the highlight of our LLD calendar!

Paul Noble is setting up two LGBTQ related events.  The first will be a follow-up meeting between senior members of the LGBTQ legal community and the LLD Executive to take the pulse on how the profession is doing for the inclusiveness of LGBTQ legal practitioners. Stay tuned for further information on the second event.

The Executive would love to hear about your team’s inclusiveness initiatives and successes.  Next month we will be profiling one of our members in this newsletter.

Religious and Cultural observances

• April 1 – Easter (Christian) This day celebrates the resurrection of Jesus from his grave. Most Christians welcome Easter Sunday with a sunrise service.
• April 2 – World Autism Awareness Day (UN) World Autism Acceptance Day is an internationally recognised day on 2 April every year, encouraging Member States of the United Nations to take measures to raise acceptance about people with autism throughout the world.
• April 7 – World Health Day (UN) This year focuses on the issue of depression. Impacting millions of people around the world, depression is the leading cause of illness and disability across the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
• April 12 –  Yom HaShoah (Israel, Jewish) Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates the death of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime
• April 12 – Day of Pink (LGBT) Communities across the world unite in celebrating diversity and raising awareness to stop homophobic, transphobic & all forms of bullying.
• April 13 – Songkran/New Year (Cambodia, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand) In southeast Asia, Songkran is recognized as the New Year for Buddhists. For Thais, it is a three-day religious festival in which homes are routinely cleaned, and water is sprinkled on monks paying visits and on statues of Buddha.
• April 13 – Baisakhi (Bangladesh, Sikh, Hindu) The first day of the solar year, this is an agricultural festival celebrating the harvest, especially in North India. Tamils and Sri Lankans celebrate their New Year on this day.
• April 22 – Earth Day (International) Earth Day 2018 is dedicated to providing the information and inspiration needed to fundamentally change human attitude and behavior about plastics and raise awareness re. poisoning and injuring marine life to disrupting human hormones, from littering our beaches and landscapes to clogging our waste streams and landfills, the exponential growth of plastics, now a threat to the survival of our planet.

Other dates of note