Addressing power inequalities within the Movement.
Health Poverty Action is committed to being an inclusive and welcoming organisation. Whether this is when we are working with the most marginalised communities or among our staff and volunteers. HPA is committed to working to ensure we do not recreate the power imbalances within our own organisation, that contribute to global inequality. This work is ongoing within a number of initiatives within HPA, for example though our staff Solidarity and Anti-oppression group, staff and board decolonisation working group and our role within the Kampala Initiative.
Our Policies
We believe one of the ways organisations and corporations sometimes cover up oppressive practices is to put detailed and progressive sounding policies on their website, which in practice make very little difference and don’t reflect the reality of their working practice. At Health Poverty Action we very much prioritise the latter – making sure our day to day working, and our internal and external relationships, reflect our values as closely and faithfully as possible. Nevertheless, we do have a number of written policies, and for purposes of transparency links to some of key ones can be found below.
Equality and Diversity
At Health Poverty Action, we are committed to equality. Our work around the world, is in pursuit of health equality. This value continues in our approach to running the organisation, including workplace and Board gender equality, inclusion and diversity, which is summarised in our Equal Opportunities Policy.
We appreciate the importance of flexible working and parental support in pursuit of equality and diversity in the workplace. By having flexibility and substantial support to parents, we have been able to welcome a diverse group of individuals into our employment. Our employees are from a wide range of backgrounds, life stages and locations. You can see our flexible working policy as well as our family and dependents policy.
Read our Policy Position on Gender-Based Violence as well as our glossary, including definitions such as gender here.
Gender Pay Gap
We appreciate that a gender pay gap exists globally. Within our work on gender equality, we want to see this gap eradicated. One way this is possible is by reflecting honestly about how our own organisation can be improved. Unfortunately, we do not have the funding to conduct a detailed investigation and create a report into staff pay across all the countries we work in. However, we appreciate the importance of transparency and so have listed the information we could obtain with the resources we have.
Among our Core Team (formerly HQ, however after becoming virtual and internationalising our staff we adopted the name Core Team), the gender pay gap is 1.39%.
Safeguarding
To learn about our policy surrounding the abuse of power (which incorporates all manners in which people’s safety and dignity might be endangered, including but not limited to sexual harassment and bribery) read the Health Poverty Action Programme Participants Safeguarding and Protection Policy (PPSPP). It has been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation.
If you have a safeguarding incident to report, please fill out this form and email it to [email protected] as soon as possible.
Whistleblowing
All Health Poverty Action staff have a duty to report any known or suspected cases of abuse, exploitation, harassment or other forms of unacceptable behaviour. As outlined in our whistleblowing policy document, Health Poverty Action has a policy of zero reprisal for whistle-blowers when an accusation is made in good faith. If you have a serious complaint when standard channels have been exhausted as outlined in our policy, please email [email protected] for reporting cases of fraud.
