Tag: free online event

Mindroom Launches ‘Thriving Workplaces: A Practical Guide to Neuroinclusion’

On Wednesday, May 14, 10 – 11:30am, Mindroom, a leading Edinburgh based charity that champions all forms of neurodiversity and works to improve the quality of life for neurodivergent people by removing barriers, increasing opportunities and shaping a more accessible world, will launch ‘Thriving Workplaces: A Practical Guide to Neuroinclusion’ with a free-to-attend online event .

The guide – developed through a collaborative partnership with Neuroinclusion at Work partners and the Prince Couple’s Foundation in Sweden – brings together real voices to offer meaningful insights into creating more inclusive workplaces.

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Registrations to the online event now open: Wednesday, May 14, 10 – 11:30am

Mindroom, a leading charity that champions all forms of neurodiversity and works to improve the quality of life for neurodivergent people by removing barriers, increasing opportunities and shaping a more accessible world, will launch ‘Thriving Workplaces: A Practical Guide to Neuroinclusion’ with a free-to-attend online event on Wednesday, May 14, from 10 to 11.30am.

The launch, which will be hosted by Mindroom’s CEO, Alan Thornburrow, will include:

  • An introduction to the guide’s purpose, principles, and practical applications
  • A panel discussion featuring employees with lived experience of neurodivergence in the workplace

With research showing that diverse perspectives lead to better problem solving, stronger teams and improved performance, the guide – developed in collaboration with a series of Neuroinclusion at Work partners and with active participation from the Prince Couple’s Foundation in Sweden – is rooted in lived experience and brings together perspectives from neurodivergent individuals, parents, carers and employers to support organisations on their journey towards creating more inclusive workplaces.

Alan Thornburrow comments: “By embracing neuroinclusion, organisations can create better working environments, where new talent is recognised, employees prosper and an inclusive business culture shines through, thus positively affecting growth and innovation in the workplace.

“We are very proud of the work we conducted in collaboration with our partners, and very grateful for everyone’s time. ‘Thriving Workplaces’ is not a set of instructions.

“This is a starting point; a resource grounded in experience and created by listening to neurodivergent individuals and collecting their thoughts on taking meaningful and lasting steps towards inclusion.

“We are very much looking forward to hosting the event and welcoming as many participants as possible to join on the journey to a more accessible world and a more inclusive working environment.”

The guide – structured around core principles of building an inclusive culture (with concrete everyday actions), support and psychological safety (where people feel free to speak openly without fear of judgement) and leadership and accountability (setting the tone with empathy) – aims to support on a practical level, including real-life insights and tools to either get started, or continue on the journey to inspire real change for the better.

“We are pleased with this collaboration and appreciate the concrete guide it has resulted in – especially since it has been developed together with neurodivergent individuals themselves”, says Helene Öberg, Secretary General of the Prince Couple’s Foundation, which is a partner in the project.

“We believe this will be a functional and important tool for employers to see and harness everyone’s full potential, something that truly aligns with our work for dyslexia and everyone’s right to be themselves.

“Being able to complement our portfolio, which focuses on tools for children, with tools that ensure that people with dyslexia/neurodivergent individuals have the best conditions throughout their whole lives feels very valuable, and we look forward to seeing the guide used in workplaces worldwide.”

Whether beginning on this journey or building on existing actions and effort, the guide provides a flexible starting point, including practical and adaptable ideas to help start meaningful conversations in the workplace and take action in a way that works for each specific organisation.

A free downloadable link to this resource will be available after the event.

For more information and to join the launch of ‘Thriving Workplaces: A Practical Guide to Neuroinclusion’, please book your place here:

‘Thriving Workplaces: A Practical Guide to Neuroinclusion’

For more information about the work Mindroom does, please click here:

Salvesen Mindroom Centre

Service to Empire: First abridged rehearsed reading of Maud Sulter play

Rehearsed Reading: Service to Empire, a play by Maud Sulter

6-7.30pm, Monday 28 November.

Free but ticketed. Online broadcast via YouTube Live.

Book a ticket here. 

In a unique live broadcast, National Galleries of Scotland present the first abridged rehearsed reading from the play by Scottish-Ghanaian artist Maud Sulter, Service to Empire. Directed and abridged by Adura Onashile and co-curated with Mother Tongue, the reading will be followed by a live Q&A.

Best known as an artist and poet, Sulter wrote Service to Empire, published with her imprint A19, in 2002. In this play she reimagines the relationship between the parents of Jerry Rawlings, the former President of Ghana: his father was a Scot, his mother Ghanaian.

Exploring long-lasting colonial legacies across two continents, Sulter considered her play provided “an incisive observation of the explosive reverberations” of their affair and its impact on Ghana’s former President (in office 1979-2002). Although the play was written 20 years ago, it has never been performed. This reading is long overdue, bringing to light the work of this internationally renowned artist.  

The National Galleries of Scotland collection includes two works by Sulter: Urania from the series Zabat (1989) and La Chevelure (2002) which is currently on display at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in The Modern Portrait exhibition. 

Through her multi-disciplinary practice Sulter questioned the representation of Black women in art and literature: “I’m interested in absence and presence in the way that particularly Black women’s experience and Black women’s contribution to culture is so often erased and marginalised … it’s important for me as an individual, and obviously as a Black woman artist, to put Black women back in the centre of the frame.”   

Mother Tongue has researched and curated Sulter’s work for several years. In 2018 they were awarded an Art Fund New Collecting Award with Glasgow Museums which resulted in Revisiting Black Artists in Scotland Through New Collecting at Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow 12 March – 3 July 2022, a group show featuring Sulter’s work, with Art Fund support and funded by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland, with generous input from the Estate of Maud Sulter. 

“The Estate is thrilled that Sulter’s words are being brought to life in this spell binding reading directed by Adura Onashile. The estate offers warmest thanks to the director, the cast, Mother Tongue and National Galleries of Scotland for bringing this project to fruition.” The Estate of Maud Sulter.

Adura Onashile, Director said: “It felt really important to me to present this rehearsed reading of Maud Sulter’s only play for the first time. As an interdisciplinary artist her approach to playwrighting is incredibly visual and rich in its scope and rigour.

“It’s been exciting to delve into her vision of a story that is both personal and universal. Although this is  only a rehearsed reading, we hope introducing the work to a wider audience will continue to highlight the breadth of Maud’s vision and inspirations.”

“Maud Sulter’s work was so ground-breaking that even 20, 25, 30 years on from its production,  it feels very much of our present. She was a visual artist, poet, curator and cultural historian amongst other facets of her practice, and it’s important to us that her words are lifted from the page and vocalised making the play accessible to a much larger audience than it’s been able to have to-date.”  Mother Tongue, co-curators.

Sir John Leighton, Director-General, National Galleries of Scotland said: “National Galleries of Scotland is delighted to support this vital and long overdue project to stage a reading of Maud Sulter’s play Service to Empire.

“Sulter is an internationally recognised Scottish contemporary artist whose visual and literary legacy is in the process of being rediscovered and reinterpreted by a new generation of artists.

“It is an honour to work with Adura Onashile, a director held in such high esteem in her field. We are grateful to the Estate for their kind co-operation and to our partners, cast and crew for the painstaking care they have taken in representing Sulter’s intentions and making this essential project happen.”