What should the social contract of a tolerant city look like? The Amsterdam conference on tolerance will discuss the meaning of tolerance, respect, acceptance and appreciation with a variety of international researchers, local politicians and inspirations. The conference was initiated by city council member Tjakko Dijk in 2018 and is hosted by the city government. The general sessions will reflect on daily city-life experiences: what is tolerance? How to measure it? What can citizens expect of each other and of the city government? The theme sessions will zoom in on the themes: work, education and sports. Actively join and participate online on January 20th!
This programme will be translated and subtitled via Zoom. Click on “Closed Caption (CC)” to see the subtitles.
Program (Central European Time):
Plenary program
13.00-13.05 Opening
13.05-14.20 Amsterdam Panel: Tolerance in Amsterdam
14.20-14.30 BreakParallel theme sessions
14.30-16.00 Theme session: Tolerance at Work
14.30-16.00 Theme session: Tolerance at School
14.30-16.00 Theme session: Tolerance in SportsPlenary program
16.00-16.15 Break
16.15-17.30 General session: What is tolerance?
17.30 Closing
Theme session: Tolerance at Work
Tolerance and work come with all types of tension. In a tolerant city, employers are expected to open up their positions in a non-discriminatory way and have policies in place to ensure that their tolerant principles are being implemented.
However, there are also small businesses, and there is a large field of self-employed people. In these situtations, being tolerant towards people, appreciate that your co-workers values differ from one’s own may be (even) more difficult.
Case: A small firm is known to hire people that reflect their own values. Although the company praises itself to be very progressive and appreciative of diffences, it also states that it just doesn’t have time to make people understand each other and invest in a culture of appreciation.
How could a tolerant city invite this company to become more inclusive?
Case Yalul: a large company states that it invests in a company-identity that moves away from religion, culture or sexuality. People that work for the company are supposed to appreciate all types of differences in the outside world, inside you’re a Yalul-person.
Speakers
- Rutger Groot Wassink, Alderman of Social Affairs, Diversity and Democratization in Amsterdam.
- Rick Delbridge is Professor of Organizational Analysis at Cardiff Business School and co-convenor of the Centre for Innovation Policy Research, Cardiff University, Wales, UK.
- Ana Mateus is Global Senior Project Manager at Booking.com. She is also the co-founder and Global Chair of B.ABLE, an Employee Resource Group (ERG) focusing on empowering colleagues with diverse physical and neurological needs to be understood and thrive in an environment that feels comfortable and fair to everyone. Working closely with the business and other ERG’s at Booking.com to build an inclusive work environment where everyone feels that they belong. Moreover, she received Booking.com’s Playmaker Award for promoting and role modeling Diversity & Inclusion in the workplace in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
