Author Archives: Dipa Vaya

Black Lives Matter: What can white people do to help?

By Dipa Vaya | Fri 19th June 2020 - 1:36 pm

The last few weeks have probably resulted in people having uncomfortable conversations with friends or family because of the issues surrounding Black Lives Matter.

I should add I’m no expert and I have been learning too, but I did expect better from elected officials representing the Party to show empathy and clarity with their communications.

Earlier this month, Katharine Macy, the Accessibility, Diversity and Standards Officer for the Young Liberals, scheduled a call to discuss diversity. Meraj Khan, the BAME representative on the diversity committee, Pushkin Defyer, the BAME Officer on Young Liberals Executive and I, as the Vice Chair for the Racial Diversity Campaign, were all asked to participate. We discussed Black Lives Matter, candidacy, and how to encourage more diverse members to get involved with activities the Young Liberals were organising. During the call, we decided to create a document of materials detailing things members could do to educate themselves on Black Lives Matter.

Here’s the document for you to view, credit goes to Katharine Macy for creating the document with ideas from Pushkin and myself. I would like to add this document isn’t perfect, it’s more a starter guide to learn and understand that Black Lives Matter.

How I am trying to improve diversity in the Liberal Democrats

By Dipa Vaya | Wed 8th June 2016 - 2:55 pm

In December 2015 the ‘Diversity Monitoring Group’ was created which consisted of five people passionate about ensuring progressive change is made to address diversity. Most people are aware that diversity needs to be addressed in the Liberal Democrats. Everyone has heard Tim Farron say ‘we are a male and pale party’. Instead of waiting to see what the Party will do next we’ve decided to create a member-led diversity survey.

The results of the survey have been shared with Liberal Democrat Headquarters, chairs of SAOs and AOs and some Federal Executive members.

How it happened

We created a set of questions, set up a Google form, and started publicising the survey, mostly across social media. The survey was shared on social media from December 2015 to February 2016.

The results show that we had 132 responses from Liberal Democrat members, all of who are anonymous. The main issues raised were: communication, party culture, gender equality and unconscious bias.

Questions include:

Are there specific areas in the party which you feel men and women are not treated equally?
Do you feel better guidance on equality and diversity (via training) could come from diversity team HQ and ALDC?
Do you have any more comments regarding the party’s understanding of equality and diversity?

Conclusions from the survey include:

The need to take into account accessibility when communicating with members.
Party culture – the “misogyny and sexism” in the Party and the “need to be educated about gender issues eg unconscious bias”.
We have passed on specific feedback to diversity SAOs and AOs

Campaigning in Watford

By Dipa Vaya | Tue 14th April 2015 - 3:19 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

I am twenty-three years old, a politics graduate and a political activist. I am a Liberal Democrat and I have volunteered with the local party. Several issues spring to mind when I think about the Liberal Democrats: equality, civil liberties, pro-Europe and of course working towards a stronger and fairer economy.

Whilst studying Politics at university, I was really happy to say I was from a marginal constituency because I felt like it made the general election a little more exciting as opposed to other constituencies.

Posted in General Election and News | Tagged dorothy thornhill and watford | 3 Comments

Opinion: Human trafficking must be an important part of safer sex work strategy

By Dipa Vaya | Fri 3rd October 2014 - 6:00 pm

The policy motion about safer sex work is an interesting topic to debate especially as fifty-five victims of human trafficking were identified in Scotland last year.

Conference will be concerned about solicitation and sex workers being forced into isolated areas where they are more at danger of sexual and physical violence. This is all fair and well but surely this is a concern of human trafficking too?

The definition of trafficking a person is the movement of them for the purpose of exploitation, which often leads to what is known as modern day slavery. It’s usually the most vulnerable people who become trapped. There are four main forms of human trafficking they are forced labour, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and deprivation. This motion concerns sexual exploitation a form of human trafficking but is only mentioned as a concern in the motion and then later promoting solutions to combat international trafficking is mentioned in passing.

Posted in News | Tagged autumn conference 2014, sex work and trafficking | 8 Comments