Year of Diversity kicks off.

Although it's probably semantics to most, Diversity is the featured Content Area, Identity is the Theme.

In the CISV Education Glossary (Draft):
Content Area = One of the four areas that make up the conceptual framework for CISV’s Peace Education. The Content Areas are: Diversity, Human Rights, Conflict and Resolution and Sustainable Development.

Theme = A unifying central idea that provides inspiration and structure.

That makes the IJB/IYM Theme a way for us to break the huge area of Diversity into a manageable, relatable subject that provides a starting point. I see them as compatible, but perhaps the marketing of both could have better identified how it relates/doesn't relate to the other.

Thanks Sarah - now that makes perfect sense to me!

It does make perfect sense what Sarah says :)
But it's a shame that the launch of the two (identity theme and diversity theme) wasn't done in accordance with the other and was done independent of the other. It would have been nice to say that the idea of Identity sprung from the Diversity theme, but that didn't happen.

Hey there,

Sarah couldn't have put it in any clearer terms! As for Hani's comment, maybe this might shed some light on how Diversity and Identity have been worked on so far:

Identity as a Theme and Diversity as our annual Content Area have been developed very closely. Both Rou and I have been working in a team of people who are coordinating our Diversity efforts, and at the same time contributing to our IJB & YM Theme.

These weren't developed independently – in fact, at AIM 2010, Kelly and I had met with the Educational Department bringing forward of working with organisational themes. It was then agreed to work with organisational content areas instead, which would at the same time fit the choice of our Identity theme (which was already being worked on)!

Also, at the Writeshop in Newcastle a few weeks ago, as IJRs we were asked to run a presentation on how IJB works with themes, in order to share our successful experience with it with people from all committees.

There will be a session being run at all 2010 RTFs on Diversity, and a part of it will show the Identity Theme as a model for picking and developing themes that fall under the Diversity domain.

So as you can see... these weren't worked on independently of each other at all. :)

Hugs,
Maru

PS The Theme Packet has a section that is called something like 'Identity and the Year of Diversity', that explains how working with the theme means contributing to our work with the annual content areas! Also, Theme activities are to be submitted to diveristy@cisv.org, which is where we will be getting all activities to populate the soon-to-be-launched CISV Library.