Organized by the Council for the Promotion of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination of People on the Grounds of Racial & Ethnic Origin
(Read the text below or download the report by the Race and Ethnic Equality Council)
1) What was the context at that time?
The Spanish Ethnic & Racial Equality Body was created in 2007 and formally constituted in September 2009 which is currently ascribed to the Ministry of Health, Social Policy and Equality through the Secretary of State of Equality. This body currently has 28 members from a variety of organizations dealing with race & ethnic non-discrimination policies (national, regional and local public administrations; trade unions; enterprises associations; NGOs).
At that moment in time, the information available to us gave us the following picture:
According to the National Barometer 2008, two thirds of the population is unaware of their rights should they be victims of discrimination and have very little knowledge of the existence of equality bodies. In addition, according to the Eurobarometer 2009, only 18% of respondents would turn to an equality body after being discriminated against, preferring instead to turn to trade unions or associations (probably due to a lack of knowledge about EBs in Spain). As indicated by several NGOs, vulnerable groups are frequently sceptical about trusting public authorities and the judicial system as their experience with these institutions when making a claim has failed in many cases.
For this reason, our strategy to reach vulnerable groups and gaining their trust was to build an effective channel of communication based on:
1. Going digital: through the Council’s website we wanted to reach (potential) victims of discrimination as well as professionals working in this field (as mentioned above).
2. Going local and in partnership: through the network of assessment and advice offices created with eight NGOs with experience in either dealing with cases of discrimination or dealing with target groups, we aimed at achieving a double objective: working in partnership with organizations that were in contact with (potential) victims at the same time as reaching the target group at local level.
By combining a digital approach with a local partnership the Council expected to reach those (potential) victims that were familiar with new technologies at the same time as reaching people who prefer one-to-one contact, through local offices.
In January 2010, we therefore started implementing the first action plan 2010-2012, with a key focus on assistance to victims, data collection and new statistics, and information and awareness-raising. This led to the launch of:
The starting point
Before designing the website’s design, structure and content, we did a brief analysis to check whether we had selected the correct target audiences. According to this brief study:
Education centres (schools/universities)
Police forces
Judges/prosecutors/lawyers
National, regional and local government
Media
Medium and small NGOs
Victims of discrimination
General public
National, regional and local governments’ departments involved in equality, nondiscrimination and immigration/Roma policies
Main national trade unions
Main national NGOs especially involved in activities targeted at immigrants and Roma or social inclusion, particularly those that are members of the Council (10 NGOs)
National NGOs working in the field of equality, non-discrimination and hate crimes (3-4 organisations)
This analysis led the Council to the conclusion that even if on the long-term the duty of the Council was to communicate with all stakeholders, the limited resources available did not make it possible. It was therefore necessary to prioritise the two most important:
The reasons for choosing these two audiences were based on the idea that by reaching the organisations closer to you, one can multiply its communication impact:
After selecting the audiences, the Council drafted a briefing, which identified the following content.
1. Objectives
Increase their understanding/knowledge of anti-discrimination legislation and policies
Create a section with practical tools on how to better deal with/prevent
discrimination
Increase their understanding/knowledge of their rights and where to go or
who to contact to receive assessment and advice.
Encourage them to complaint.
2. Communication style and language
Taking into account the audiences selected, it was considered appropriate to use simple language as well as a direct tone (one to one) to give a sense of closeness. The idea was to keep institutional text to the minimum.
3. Key messages
The Council agreed 3 messages that would have to be taken into account when drafting the content:
1) Discrimination is illegal.
2) People have the right to complaint when discriminated against.
3) Diversity is an asset of our societies: managing it is enriching.
Taking into account the previous information, it was decided to develop a structure through which the target audiences could identify themselves through the content. We therefore created two boxes at the right part of the home site (as shown in the image): the first one targeted at (potential) victims of discrimination “Have you been discriminated?” and the second one targeted at professionals “Do you work in equality?”. In addition to these, we developed a structure based on relevant information for both audiences
The Council | Discrimination | Your rights | Assessment offices | Key tools | News |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
*Context *Members *The Chair *Our mission *Working Plan |
*What is discrimination? *What is equality? *Where can we find discrimination more commonly? *Key statistics *Who is who |
*What to do if you have been discriminated? *The law |
*Map of information points with contact details |
*The law *Publications *Who is who |
*Agenda *News |
5. Dissemination
In this section we unfortunately did not have enough budget to design a comprehensive dissemination strategy with an agency. However, we agreed a few actions based on our assets:
1) All press releases would include a reference to the website
2) All members were encouraged to add a link to the new website in their sites.
3) All NGOs part of the Assessment & Advice Offices were to include a link in their sites and encouraged to include news in their newsletters.
6. Outputs
1) 1 new content uploaded per month
2) 1,000 monthly visits the first year.
3) Increase of cases dealt through the website.
7. Indicators
8. Evaluation
1) Frequency of evaluation: it was decided to evaluate the results every three months in order to assess if the strategy needed reinforcement
2) Tools: google analytics and case forms (question: how did you know of the existence of this service + cases received by e-mail)
Note: unfortunately, we only have data until May 2011 as the Ministry decided it was not appropriate to use google analytics as it gave out information considered reserved. During the summer the site had a content manager upgrade which stopped data collection, which means there is a lack of information between June and September.
The data available shows the following results:
Indicator | 2010 Trimester 4 (November-December) | 2011 Trimester 1 (January-March) |
---|---|---|
Number of news uploaded | 4 | 4 |
Number of news uploaded | 8.545 | 12.944 (increase of 66%) |
Total number of visits | 2.040 | 2.914 (increase of 47%) |
Average time spent on the site | 3min y 35sec | 2min y 52sec |
Origin of visits | 67,70% direct 22,90% reference sites (migualdad.es, twitter & facebook) 9,31% search sites |
41,64% direct 27, 77% reference sites (migualdad.es, twitter & facebook) 31,59% search sites |
Percentage of new visitors | 67,75% | 72,3% |
Number of cases through website | Not available yet | Not available yet |
9. Management
Currently, the Council only has one full-time staff member dedicated to the implementation of the action plan. It was therefore decided to include this activity within her daily work. Taking this into account, the number of hours spent on this is very limited: an average of 2 hours per week. This of course has an impact on the outputs and results, which are kept to the minimum.