THIS MONTH’S HIGHLIGHTS
“During the month of March, individuals living with cerebral palsy, as well as family members and activists, come together to advocate for the cerebral palsy community. Cerebral palsy is a permanent disability that impacts a person's mobility and muscle strength.” - Cerebral Palsy Guide
In recognition of National Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, the incredibly talented Photographer, Robin, has masterfully created a series of stunning and captivating images featuring models Chloe and Zachary. These breathtaking photographs brilliantly capture their spirit and resilience, serving as a testament to their strength in the face of adversity. Furthermore, these remarkable images have also been included in print here as a part of our broader Disability Awareness initiative. This initiative seeks to foster a greater level of understanding and awareness about cerebral palsy, a condition that affects many people around the world. Through this work, we hope to highlight the issue, challenge misconceptions, and ultimately contribute to fostering an environment of acceptance and support.
Read the online feature here.
MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
The Swanky Media Group Ltd has a strong passion for taking wellbeing and mental health very seriously. We are very proud of supporting a number of initiatives across our company - from internal wellbeing and mental health programmes as well as offering courses and initiatives externally to our customers.
Launched during the initiation of The Swanky Media Group Ltd, we set up the ‘Understanding Upstairs’ (UU) foundation + campaign - where we strive to have equality between physical health and mental health, both inside and outside the workplace. Between our 20 brands and publications, we are always looking for new ways to support mental health conversations by opening up, delving into, thinking about and creating healthy and new solutions.
Coming out of the pandemic, the time during lockdown caught a lot of people in their mental headspace. We took the time working on stronger and more frequent mental health discussions. Our topics can span from feeling stressed and overwhelmed, dealing and managing with grief, depression, anxiety, physical illnesses and much more. We also speak about topics of positive change - from thinking optimistically, gaining personal resilience, practicing gratitude and grace, mindfulness, motivation and meditation, as well as changing your thinking.
Things we have been up to and implementing:
Wildlife nature walks and mindfulness.
World Mental Health Day activities.
Giving advice for mental health across our publications/brands as well as our foundation.
Gratitude and grace thinking activities.
Recognising and managing of physical illness depression and coming up with coping mechanisms.
Changing the mind with positive thinking for people with disabilities.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION AT THE SWANKY MEDIA GROUP LTD
We believe that Diversity & Inclusion should ALWAYS be seen, heard and felt across our company. To support our teams, clients, and audiences across the globe, this has been a belief carried out since day one.
Belonging to our team and The Swanky Media Group’s approach to diversity and inclusion ensures that The Swanky Media Group never leaves anyone out, and makes a great workplace for all. With that, The Swanky Media Group laid out commitments to meet in the initiation.
The commitments fall under 4 key pillars:
RECRUITMENT
EDUCATION
SUPPORTING
CELEBRATING
1. RECRUITMENT
Our company measuring diversity in our recruitment process and our staff
Since the beginning of our company, we made the decision to keep tabs on each application and diversity categories, by doing so has ensured that every diversity category is represented in a pool of candidates and considered to join the workforce - this further ensures that the communities we engage with by our brands/platforms reflect and represent in our work and workplace.
Improving our identification of talent from ethnic minority communities
All of our recruitment suppliers and our own recruitment website look for talent from the ethnic minority communities. As a company, we only partner with recruitment suppliers that stand by our hiring diversity and inclusivity objectives. Our recruitment team are always looking to push the boundaries and introduce a new age of positive change for all communities, especially those in the ethnic minority.
Supporting schemes that increase the diversity of talent for media
Diversity in media matters because it brings attention to an otherwise underrepresented community and gives a voice to the otherwise voiceless. We support schemes that specialise in training under-represented individuals.
2. EDUCATE
Educating all staff on what we can do to improve this programme.
All of our staff are expected to complete multiple Diversity and Inclusion modules with us - this is throughout the entirety of their time with us and is unique in that in no aspect is it a one-off module. This ensures that a baseline knowledge is applied and built on during their employment with The Swanky Media Group.
Educating staff that are in the majority ethnic community on what the ethnic minority community experiences.
Without learning the experiences one faces, how can society be expected to change? That’s why at Swanky Media Group we encourage to share experiences, inspire others and remove the stigmas and ideas that society carries about diversity and inclusion.
3. SUPPORT
Upholding our People Code of Conduct
Swanky Media Group’s People Code of Conduct, that is a mandatory document that our employees sign, stating that our company stands by the values and the cultures in which diversity is supported and appreciated. All opportunities are open to everyone, each person is treated with respect and kindness in a way that others expect to be treated. As a company, everyone is encouraged to speak up if a staff member is not meeting these expectations.
Protecting all mental health
We continue to offer mental health services to all members of staff - including services that covers the topics of diversity and inclusion. At Swanky Media Group, everyone’s mental health matters.
Standing in solidarity with external movements
We will continue to use our platforms/brands/publications to stand up, speak out and inspire change to movements that align with greater change.
4. CELEBRATE
Celebrating our role models
We take time to recognise those at Swanky Media Group limited, shining a light on what change they inspire as role models and celebrating them internally at our company.
Celebrating Cultural Events
We take pride and joy in celebrating cultural events across The Swanky Media Group. We observe these dates and work with our staff to ensure the significant impact on the cultural event is truly celebrated.
SUSTAINABILITY
The Swanky Media Group Ltd is sharply focused on sustainability and conservation as a long-term, fully integrated business approach. Our goal is simple and inspires positive impact: Create a healthy environment for our employees, guests, creatives, and clients. Sustaining and conserving this environment and biodiversity for future generations.
Today we are committed to doing even more — to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, water consumption, and waste generation.
WHAT WE ARE DOING AT SWANKY MEDIA GROUP HQ AND OUR EVENTS
Our onsite staff uses Global Electric Motorcars (GEM Carts) instead of vehicles powered by gas.
Our store is all-recyclable and reusable products.
We exclusively use green cleaning products at our headquarters.
Our headquarters has implemented new lighting protocols that allow us to minimize our energy use and lower our carbon footprint without any impact on your experience.
Our headquarters has a recently upgraded HVAC system that minimizes our energy usage and lowers our carbon footprint.
We’ve added reduced flow toilets and automatic faucets in our restrooms.
Our headquarters has added light motion sensors in all staff-used rooms and offices to help conserve energy.
The Editorial Suite now uses reverse osmosis water instead of bottled water and no longer uses paper plates and cups in favour of reusable items.
Working with organisations to promote change with our Conker Nature Wildlife Magazine and World Encounter Travel Magazine brands.
DISABILITY AWARENESS
The Swanky Media Group Ltd strongly believes in disability awareness in the workplace. As a company, we are immensely focused on providing day-to-day support and awareness at our headquarters, events, and various locations globally. We know that every disability is not the same from one individual to the next, which is why we offer one-to-one support to each of our employees with disabilities - regardless whether it has been formally diagnosed or strongly suspected.
We commit ourselves to following the Equality Act 2010, which sets out when someone is considered to have a disability and is protected from disability discrimination. It's not possible to give an exhaustive list of all conditions or impairments that might be classed as a disability - but we support everyone in our workplace in every aspect we can.
Other conditions and impairments (this doesn’t include cancer, HIV, MS, or blindness as these are automatically supported) in the workplace are:
Disfigurement - having an substantial adverse effect on someone's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
Long Covid - having an substantial adverse effect on someone's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities and causing other impairments.
Menopause - menopause can cause severe physical or mental health symptoms that have a long-term and substantial adverse effect on carrying out normal day-to-day activities.
Neurodiversity including ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, and Dyscalculia - Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia are forms of neurodivergence – there are others too. this amounts to a disability under the Equality Act 2010, even if the person does not consider themselves to be disabled.
WHAT WE ARE DOING AT SWANKY MEDIA GROUP HQ AND OUR EVENTS
All staff members are disabled awareness trained, and have regular training sessions throughout their employment with us.
Reasonable adjustments are made for each one of our disabled staff members to ensure an enjoyable work environment.
Hold disability awareness workshops promoting disability in the workplace.
We review, adapt, and develop our Disability Awareness Promise on an ongoing basis to ensure that we continue to grow and be a great place for all to achieve great work.
