SYP UK Events Policy

The core goal of the Pugwash movement is to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Justice and ending all forms of discrimination and white supremacy are intrinsic parts of this work. As Student / Young Pugwash’s events move online for the foreseeable future due to the coronavirus pandemic, we are working to ensure our events remain inclusive and accessible. We have formed this Code of Conduct for ourselves, our speakers and our event attendees. When in-person events become possible once more, we will revisit this policy.

Our commitments

We will commit to the following for our online events:

  • Where possible, we will provide closed captioning to any video events
  • We will ask speakers to ensure any accompanying slides are accessible and we will provide guidance on how to do this
  • Where possible, we will circulate slides ahead of our online events
  • We will respond promptly to any access requirements communicated to us. Accessibility requirements can be communicated to us through syp@britishpugwash.org
  • Every online event will be moderated and moderators will be clearly identified for each event

Our events will have a no-tolerance policy for harassment and bullying. Attendees of our events can report any instances of harassment or bullying to event moderators, via the event chat function, or via email (syp@britishpugwash.org).

We will strive to have gender parity for all our speaker events, and in the least, commit to not host events solely consisting of male speakers. SYP UK is committed to elevating the voices of Black people and non-Black People of Colour. We will actively seek for our events to include the perspectives and voices of Black people and non-Black People of Colour. We are currently engaging with Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security’s Orgs in Solidarity Initiative to continue to develop and effect progress on anti-racism and non-discrimination, within our own organisation and within the wider peace and security movement.

What we ask of our attendees

We ask the attendees of our events to join us in fostering a collaborative and welcoming environment. To do this, we ask our attendees to respect the speakers and their fellow attendees and follow our no-tolerance policy for harassment and bullying. To facilitate a productive environment, we ask attendees to mute their microphones while not speaking.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank British Pugwash Board Member, Anuradha Damale, for sharing with us the Conference Policy for ‘Space Science in Context’, developed by Eleanor Armstrong and Divya M. Persaud. This excellent resource informed and helped us develop our own policy.