Municipality of Amsterdam provides ‘white privilege’ training to civil servants | Inland

Alderman Rutger Groot Wassink (GL) says in a letter to the city council that he will implement the motion of councilor Sylvana Simons (Bij1). She asked the college to start a trial in which civil servants would receive privilege training. According to Groot Wassink, such training courses are ‘about the systematic differences in opportunities as a result of diversity characteristics such as origin, class and gender’. According to the GL alderman, ‘various elaborations are possible, such as in the form of a privilege walk or a more informative and theoretical approach’.

costs

The costs for such privilege training vary from 750 to 1250 euros, depending on group size, duration and the specific need. In addition, there are one-off costs for the design phase (approximately 2000 euros), the accurate monitoring and evaluation to measure the effect and quality (3000 to 4500 euros) and the staffing efforts for coordination and communication (4000 euros).

Groot Wassink writes that the theme should become ‘part of the broader theme of inclusion’. “The training courses including recruitment and selection will be offered in 2020 and 2021 to approximately 900 P&O advisers, directors and managers who have a role in the recruitment and selection process.” A pilot of a management course on inclusion is now also taking place within three organizational units of the municipality. Privilege is one of the themes in this. ”

‘Bad thing’

In the coming months, further research will be conducted into how the training offer in the field of inclusion and diversity is organized for the entire civil service. “Privilege is included as one of the themes in this offer.” CDA councilor Diederik Boomsma strongly criticizes the plan on social media. “Bad thing! This intersectionalism is not a neutral accepted input but a controversial ideology imported from the US. The municipality should not impose that. “

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