BARNARDO'S WINS AT THE BRITISH DIVERSITY AWARDS 2004
(28 October 2004)

Children's Charity Barnardo's picked up the Fellowship Award at the British Diversity Awards on Friday 22 October 2004. Barnardo's representatives Errol John and Bhaggie Patel received the award - described as 'the highest accolade' - from HRH the Duke of Gloucester. The Fellowship Award is given to organisations who have made a significant impact on workplace issues, particularly those relating to a diverse community.

Celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year, the British Diversity Awards were set up to publicly recognise initiatives which assist the recruitment, employment, training and promotion of under-represented groups in the workplace. These initiatives aim to reduce discrimination and provide maximum organisational benefits in terms of the creativity and innovation that a diverse workforce can bring to productivity and the bottom line.

Barnardo's Pheonix Project was also shortlisted and highly commended for The Diversity Champions In Innovation and Awareness Award for their ground-breaking photographic exhibition 'Behind Closed Doors'.

Errol John added: "this Fellowship Award comes at a poignant time as Barnardo's moves closer into its centenary year, 2005. We will be celebrating the difference that Barnardo's made to the lives of children then and the difference we continue to make now, to give children a better start in life".

Barnardo's is the UK's largest children's charity, working annually with almost 100,000 children, young people and their families across the UK. The charity works with the most vulnerable children and young people, helping them to transform their lives and fulfil their potential.

Elaine Sihera, founder of the Awards closed the ceremony with a very moving and emotional speech: "The British Diversity Awards are about recognising and rewarding simple effort. It is all too easy to be complacent; to wait for the perfect kind of diversity to emerge or to just pay lip service and do nothing. But true acceptance of diversity is really about mutual respect, from one person to the other, from one group to another and from one culture to another, nothing else".

ABOUT THE BRITISH DIVERSITY AWARDS

The British Diversity Awards were launched at the House of Commons in October 1995 by Elaine Sihera, Editor and Publisher of New Impact Journal. She is also a leading independent authority on diversity development in the UK. The only national awards of their kind in the world, the event has been a catalyst for significant employment change throughout the UK. Every year, organisations across the country with employees totalling up to 2.5 million (nearly 10% of Britain's workforce) enter the awards.

Click here to read about other winners at The British Diversity Awards 2004.

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