Welcome to the This Is Me in Asia Podcast Series brought to you by Community Business and in partnership with Bloomberg and the Lord Mayor’s Appeal. This storytelling campaign aims to normalise mental health conversations in the workplace and tackle the stigma associated with mental health conditions and disability.

This is Me was first pioneered by Barclays in the UK in 2014 and is now led by the Lord Mayor's Appeal in London. Community Business first introduced the campaign to Asia in 2019.

The This is Me campaign focuses on personal storytelling and sharing of lived experiences to encourage conversations around mental health in the workplace.

Learn More: www.communitybusiness.org

In order to promote inclusion, the creation of diverse workplaces is vital and although conversations are well underway in regard to many diversity dimensions, discussions around Neurodiversity are still in their infancy. Global estimates predict that neurodiverse conditions affect one in eight people. From a workplace perspective, this translates to more than one in every ten job applicants, employees or clients. Collective effort is required from multiple corporates to not only set a precedent in initiating conversations around Neurodiversity but also in extending D&I initiatives to fully encompass all neurological differences, especially during the processes of hiring, training and retaining neurodiverse talent.

Read More: bit.ly/3ogXkzC

Having joined Community Business in April, my first introduction to the company and the members/clients of this organisation through our conference “What’s Race Got to Do with It?.” We spent three days attempting to narrow down what race and racial discrimination consisted of in Asia, and how we should approach it individually and within organisations. We walked through our research which demonstrated that this is a priority – 81% of 2000+ employees surveyed highlighted that they expect organisations to address it internally and externally. While there were a lot of great takeaways from this conference, do you know what the biggest was for me?

Read more:https://www.communitybusiness.org/latest-news-publications/we-cannot-be-afraid-talk-about-race

Welcome to the This Is Me in Asia Podcast Series brought to you by Community Business and in partnership with Bloomberg and the Lord Mayor’s Appeal. This storytelling campaign aims to normalise mental health conversations in the workplace and tackle the stigma associated with mental health conditions and disability.

This is Me was first pioneered by Barclays in the UK in 2014 and is now led by the Lord Mayor's Appeal in London. Community Business first introduced the campaign to Asia in 2019.

The This is Me campaign focuses on personal storytelling and sharing of lived experiences to encourage conversations around mental health in the workplace.

In this first episode, we bring you Javid's story. Javid shares candidly with us the value of empathy and non-judgmental listening and discusses how such traits can be applied in a workplace environment. He also touches upon the social pressures a man faces in society and how he dealt with these situations.

Hear first hand from Javid by listening to the podcast now.

Learn More: www.communitybusiness.org

With the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelming media, policy and governmental resources and the prominence of online work and communication, many in the transgender community have voiced the crucial need to reconnect face to face. The largely online environment of the last two years has left people feeling more isolated and vulnerable than ever before. For those who feel uncomfortable using online platforms, worries for mental health repercussions are exacerbated. This is particularly prominent from a workplace perspective, as employees embark on their second year of working from home, the line between work and home life is becoming increasingly blurred, bringing with it detrimental mental health consequences.

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It was in my early teenage years that I first listened to Sting’s “Englishman in New York” and the lyrics chimed a sentiment that was all too familiar for me - the need to belong, to be accepted and to be valued in places that I visited, lived or called my own. For me, this was the need to fit into my own culture, be part of an insider group of kids at school or be able to relate to my cousins or friends in their pursuits in life. As the years went by, I realised that my life continued to echo the same sentiment as I started working and in true sense, I felt like a ‘legal alien’ in another place I called my own; my workplace. I felt deep down, I did not belong and fitting in was a flex.

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In recent years we have seen the global narrative around women’s advancement, protection and equality accelerate. Women’s wellbeing and security is being placed at the forefront of public debate and corporations must ensure that they are not excluded from these conversations. In marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on 24 November we would like to take this opportunity to explore the implications of gender (and all forms of) violence, harassment and assault in and around organisations in Asia, and encourage them to foster an inclusive culture where all staff feel comfortable, safe and productive.

Learn More - bit.ly/3EKLZOB

When I was clinically diagnosed with severe Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), it was so debilitating that I was bed-ridden and unable to lead a normal life. I was told by my psychiatrist that there was a chance I could never return to work. It was devastating because I was young with a whole life ahead of me.

Women face different challenges on their health and wellbeing issues at different stages of their lives - from reproductive health and gynaecological conditions to the fatigue caused by care responsibilities and in unfortunate case, domestic abuse. Despite many women struggling with these issues, most of them keep it in silence as these topics are seen as taboo in society and the workplace, especially in Asia. Such silence might adversely affect women’s mental health, as well as their workplace performance.

Read More - bit.ly/3F7vb5s