At Sarcoma UK, we are committed to making equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) part of everything we do. Our EDI working group brings colleagues together to share ideas, solve challenges, and continuously improve how we work. Through collaboration and conversation, we are building a more inclusive charity for everyone we support through taking practical steps.
Our achievements this year
Over the last year, we have continued to highlight key awareness days such as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and National Inclusion Week. These moments give us the chance to pause, listen, and learn, helping us to connect with a wider audience and reinforce our commitment to inclusive practice.
Each year, the EDI working group runs a staff survey to understand how colleagues feel about EDI within the charity. This year’s feedback led to meaningful updates to our internal staff handbook, including clearer guidance and stronger support for those experiencing EDI concerns. These changes were shaped directly by staff voices.
We are also proud to have hosted our very first in-person, interactive EDI training session. The content was based on feedback from our staff survey and focused on disability awareness. Given that we support people affected by sarcoma, including some who live with limb loss, this felt like an important place to start. The session encouraged reflection, discussion, and practical thinking about how we can make our services and workplace more inclusive.
Following its success, we plan to make bespoke EDI training a yearly commitment.
EDI is also about access. Our information and content team has worked hard to include translated content so that more people can access support in their language. Alongside adding a translation tool to our website, we now offer printed sarcoma booklets in Arabic, Urdu, Bengali, Polish, and Romanian.
Looking ahead to next year
Over the next year, we will continue to mark awareness days and use our social media channels to promote inclusive messages, as well as continuing to collaborate as an organisation with all EDI work.
We will also launch an external EDI survey to better understand how the wider community experiences us. We will ask questions such as: Do people feel represented? Do they feel welcome? Where can we do better?
We are also exploring partnerships with charities that have a strong EDI focus so we can learn from their expertise and challenge ourselves to grow. Internally, we want to communicate more regularly about the work of the EDI group so that colleagues can see the progress being made and contribute to what comes next.
A continuing commitment
We’ve made meaningful progress this year, but we know EDI is ongoing work, and we’re committed to keeping that momentum going.
Building a truly equitable, diverse and inclusive charity takes time, reflection and accountability. We will continue listening, learning and making changes so that our work represents and supports everyone affected by sarcoma.
Overall, we’ve had a successful year of making continuous improvements in all areas of EDI, but our work is never complete. We will keep working hard to ensure Sarcoma UK is an equitable, diverse, and inclusive charity, and that our work and outputs represent and are available to everyone affected by sarcoma.
