Diversity Festival 2025
A week of free events to ignite important conversations and celebrate the diversity of our community
Grant applications are open now
亚美棋牌's annual Diversity Festival is shaped by our community. Each year, we invite 亚美棋牌 students and staff to contribute to the program by hosting events and activities during the festival in September (Week 2, Term 3).
Grants of up to $2500 are available to 亚美棋牌 students and staff to deliver festival events.聽If you don鈥檛 require funding but have a great idea, you should still submit an application to be part of the program.
Applications close on Monday 9 June.聽
What you need to know
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As the organiser of Diversity Festival, EDI provides the following to event contributors:
- Venue spaces (see Event venues tab)
- Accessibility provisions聽to ensure events are inclusive and accessible (AUSLAN etc)
- Grants of up to $2500 (see Grants and funding tab)
- Promotion of the festival and all events in the program
- An orientation session, festival toolkit and regular drop-in sessions for event contributors聽to聽help develop ideas and support the smooth delivery of the event.
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As the name implies, Diversity Festival hosts a wide range of events designed to ignite broader conversations on creating an inclusive society where everyone can participate.聽
Ideas for topics include but are not limited to:
- Age diversity
- Cultural and linguistic diversity
- Disability
- Diverse sexualities, sexes and genders
- Gender equity
- Mental health and neurodivergence
- Widening participation
- Societal impact
- Sustainability and sustainable development.
Ideas for event formats include but are not limited to:
- Art exhibitions
- Creative or technical workshops / demonstrations
- Film screenings
- Live music
- Online events
- Keynote speakers
- Panel discussions
- Physical activities
- Social gatherings
- Ethical market stalls
- Webinars.
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Running events can be expensive. To help make Diversity Festival the best it can be, venue space is provided and grants of up to $2500 per event are on offer to 亚美棋牌 students and staff.聽
The grant can help cover:聽
- Payments to speakers / facilitators / contractors聽
- Materials required for the event or activity聽
- Design of promotional material聽
- Venue hire (if not using the main venue already booked and funded by EDI - more details in the Event venues tab).聽
Payments for catering may be available, depending on event details.鈥疓rant funds will be internally transferred to successful recipients.
If you don鈥檛 require funding but have a great idea, you should still submit an application to be part of the program.
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Diversity Festival will be based at the鈥燼nd rooms are available to event organisers at no additional cost.聽
These spaces can hold events that vary in size and format. When submitting an event idea, please specify your target audience and any audio-visual requirements (presenting screen, hybrid event capabilities etc) so that we can find the right space for your event.聽
Organisers are welcome to use alternative venues but must do so at their own expense.
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When you apply, please nominate your preferred day and time for the event.
If your application is successful, we may ask you to revise your timing to avoid clashes with other events during the week or to ensure the most suitable venue is available.
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If your application to be part of Diversity Festival 2025 is successful, we will invite you to a briefing session and check in with you at regular intervals to see how your planning is progressing and support you as best we can.聽
We will advertise all approved events as part of the overall festival program. Successful applicants will be expected to organise all other event elements, including:聽
- Booking venues / spaces other than those booked by EDI
- Define your event requirements (e.g. room set up, AV)
- Placing orders for all services required
- Setting up a registration聽page and managing ticketing (we will provide accessibility guidelines)
- Promoting the event through your networks
- Liaising with all event participants and attendees leading up to and on the event day
- Manage finances and all aspects of payments for the event and speakers聽
- Provide registration and attendee data for EDI-led feedback surveys
- Complying with the grant timeline and deadlines (detailed in the next tab).聽
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Monday 5 May鈥瘄 Applications open聽
Monday 9 June聽| Applications close聽
16 June - 4 July聽| All applicants are advised of outcomes by email
Mid-July | Briefing session for all event organisers
July - September | Weekly drop-in sessions for ongoing help and support
Monday 11 August鈥瘄 Deadline to provide the following for inclusion in the Diversity Festival program:聽
- Promotional image聽
- One paragraph summary of the event聽
- Link to the registration page聽
Mid August |聽Meetings and deadline to finalise event logistics (if using an EDI-booked venue)聽
22 - 26 September聽| Diversity Festival 2025
29 September | Deadline to provide registration and attendee data for the feedback survey
During October聽| Debrief on events and acquittal of all related costs
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Please email聽EDIComms@unsw.edu.au. We are happy to answer any questions on the Diversity Festival grant application process.
Get inspired
Check out the highlight reel from last year鈥檚 Diversity Festival.
{Music}
This is the sixth Diversity Festival at 亚美棋牌.聽
Diversity Festival is important because it's an opportunity to turn issues that often students experience as a problem into something a lot more productive, a lot more positive.
Diversity Festival is just about celebrating and embracing the natural differences of human diversity. It's about acknowledging that everyone is different. Everyone comes from different lived experiences and has a different perspective. And it's about embracing that and finding ways in which we can utilize that for the advantage of our 亚美棋牌 community.
The great thing about the Diversity Festival is it really is run by the community, for the community. So the way we organize it is we go out to the University, we offer grants, and people pitch up the ideas that they want to see.
We are celebrating pride in engineering, and the idea is to bring a panel of people from the industry who may be allies or part of the LGBTQ+ community. And the idea is to bring everyone together and tocelebrate diversity.
We've got a stall for Diversified, and we've done a collaboration with ELS and PASS from student support services.
So the stall today is called "My name is".. it really aims to find more inclusive ways of understanding student experience.
We've had an international student choir come together for the first time to sing.
Today we have been talking about sensory experiences.
I've loved seeing the stalls that are here today in the Quad. I've loved them because they're really about talking to students about the sorts of issues that matter to them.
The events where we actually have panels and conversations are often more about those sticky issues, those issues where we want experts to maybe talk about things, but again, in a way that embraces curiosity, respect and safety.
It really is about inclusion, bringing people in and having fun.
One thing we've really noticed in students that are coming to university, particularly after Covid, is that people are much more alive to issues like loneliness, about creating welcoming communities and making sure that everybody knows that, particularly at the university, however you present to the world, you are welcome.
It has been so great to see everyone show up and come out and be so interested and engaged and being really interested in engaging with conversations that matter that we should be having.
I know that I wouldn't be able to do what I do if I didn't have a strong community backing. And I just love that 亚美棋牌 creates these opportunities for people from all different areas of the University can come together and talk about things that are important to them and actually make a real social impact in the lives of our 亚美棋牌 community.
