Athena & REACH bring you a panel discussion
from women across cultures

Join us on Wednesday 8 March, 11:45 in the Atrium  
 
Click here to save the event in your diaries. 

This Wednesday 8 March is International Women’s Day – a chance for us to celebrate women’s achievements, raise awareness about discrimination and women’s equality, and take action to drive gender parity. 

To be successful in the workplace, it’s important to understand the role that culture plays. Women across cultures have different experiences and perspectives which can be invaluable. In celebration of International Women’s Day, Athena and REACH will host a panel discussion to explore these subjects.

Olinda, Claudia, Anastasia and Maja will join the panel to discuss the unique challenges they face in their respective cultures. We’ll celebrate achievements, talk about what it takes to be an ambitious dreamer, and explore safe avenues to progress our conversations further. We look forward to seeing you there! 

Learn more about our panel below. You can also send in your questions in advance, here.

Meet our panel:

Meet Olinda Gomes. Olinda was born in Angola, a country located in South West Africa. After being awarded a scholarship, at the age of 19, Olinda moved to the United States, where she studied for five years. Olinda then moved to the United Kingdom to complete a master’s degree and has been building a life here in the UK for the past five years. Olinda currently works in the Insights and Data Science department as a Data Scientist for Revenue Management.  

 

Meet Claudia Carrozzi. Claudia is Italian and studied hospitality before moving to the UK 16 years ago. Claudia moved to the UK specifically to learn English, which is the spoken word in the hospitality trade, but now considers the UK to be her home. Claudia manages the beverage category for Cunard within the Brand and Product development team.  

 

Meet Anastasia Slizova. Anastasia is from Volgograd in Russia. She moved to Lancaster in the UK eight years ago to embark on a bachelor’s degree in Marketing. She then went on to complete a master’s degree in Sociology. Now Anastasia lives in Southampton and works in the Cunard Revenue Management department. 

  

Meet Maja Struc. Maja was born in Ljubljana in Slovenia and moved to the UK in 2012 to study Fashion at the Winchester School of Art. Upon completing her bachelor’s degree, she got her sea legs and began developing her career in international waters, where she worked for four years. She is currently working in Maritime department as a Technical Controller.   

 

About our networks: 
Employee Led Networks (ELNs) are set up by colleagues of Carnival UK. They have the full support of the business, but ultimately, they’re by employees, for employees. We now have four networks at CUK championing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I). 

Athena is passionate about equal opportunities for people regardless of gender. We raise visibility of gender issues and invite everyone to join the conversation, by doing this, we work with the business to influence meaningful change in the workplace. Athena inspires progress. Find out more.  

REACH, our newest network, is about elevating and uplifting colleagues from different racial, ethnic and cultural heritage backgrounds. When “Embracing Equity” (this year’s International Women’s Day theme) it’s important we look to how we can elevate all women, and advocate for intersectionality in the workplace. REACH welcomes anyone who supports our aims and is interested in gaining a greater understanding of issues related to ethnicity and cultural heritage. Find out more. 

#EmbraceEquity on International Women’s Day  

This year’s IWD theme is: #EmbraceEquity. But what does embracing equity actually mean?  

Equity Vs Equality 
It’s important to understand the difference between ‘equity’ and ‘equality’. Equity can be defined as giving everyone what they need to be successful. In other words, it’s not giving everyone the exact same thing.  

If we give everyone the exact same thing and expect it to make people equal, it assumes that everyone started out in the same place. This can be vastly inaccurate because – everyone isn’t the same. 

Here at CUK, #EmbracingEquity is about lifting and elevating women and non-binary individuals in our organisation to give them the same opportunities as men – all the while being cognisant of the struggles that women face.