Our commitment to anti-oppression

Committing to anti-oppressive work is an ongoing process for individuals and organisations. We are transparent with our practices, our progress and where we fall short. For accountability, we will report on our progress every year. We invite all members of our community to talk to us about our values.

What is anti-oppressive work?

When we talk about oppression, we mean the combination of individual and cultural prejudice and institutional power which creates a discriminatory system. This enables dominant groups or individuals to exert control over non-dominant groups or individuals by limiting their rights, freedoms, and access to basic resources.

Systemic and structural oppression has led to multiple forms of injustice. Anti-oppression work seeks to actively challenge this status quo, enabling us to live in a society rooted in care.

At the3million we recognise our own ways of working may replicate these oppressions and injustices. We acknowledge those who are the most impacted or marginalised are often the least represented or heard. We are actively working to challenge our own systems and structures, aiming to break a perpetuating cycle of oppression.

Our vision

Our vision is for the3million to be an organisation where everyone is respected, included and valued, advocating for, representing and giving a voice to EU citizens in all of their diversity, especially those who are least heard.

This is crucial in order for us to achieve our overall vision of a society where EU citizens thrive, fully exercise their rights and enjoy an equal voice in the UK.

Our values

We are a community of shared values. In addition to the3million’s organisational values, we have identified additional values specifically from an anti-oppression point of view.

Inclusion: We value diversity and feel enriched by differences. We recognise, respect and build trust with each other.

Integrity: We are truthful and transparent. We ensure a safe environment.

Accountability: We learn from our mistakes and take responsibility.

Non-judgmental: We express empathy, support and acceptance of everyone, regardless of who they are. 

Equal worth: We respect human beings; we strive towards fairness.

Challenging power: We encourage everyone to both speak up and to listen.

Change: We are prepared to change. Change is continuous and we believe in self-reflection. 

Justice: We work towards fairness and equity.

What we are doing

We are committed to acknowledging and challenging the way that power and privilege based on aspects like race, gender, class or age are expressed within our own organisation. This can lead to uncomfortable situations raising difficult questions and we are committed to acknowledging mistakes, learning and being willing to speak up and carefully listen to each other. We believe it is important to raise these issues externally as well, with partners and collaborators and we expect others to raise them with us.

Staff & organisational

• We are reviewing our processes and systems, aiming to implement a progressive policy framework.
• We are committed to delivering anti-oppression and non-violent communication training to all staff. 
• We are reviewing our decision making processes, reflecting on how decisions are made, who is involved, and how to open up our structures to reflect views of wider diverse communities. 
• We are exploring power dynamics by organising workshops based on learning from the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, The Power Project 

Communications & advocacy 

• We are continuously reflecting on language we use in our campaigns and communications, standing against harmful narratives. 
• We are devising strategies to further involve in our work people with lived experience, empowering those who have experienced the sharp end of the hostile environment, and facilitating solidarity between intersectional communities.
• We are reviewing how our campaigns are shaped, how decisions are made to pursue campaigns’ asks, how we present our policy proposals and how we can make our campaigns more accessible and inclusive of more diverse voices.
• We collaborate with a range of partnership organisations to promote anti-racist, anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory values and campaigns in migration policy. 

Volunteers & constituency 

• We commit to improve the diversity of our staff team, board of directors, our volunteers and partners we engage with, focusing on representation of groups who are under-represented and marginalised in EU citizens’ communities. 
• We will implement changes to our events and volunteering opportunities to ensure we are as accessible as possible. 

We have created an anti-oppression working group formed of staff, board members and volunteers who are anti-oppression champions who monitor our development in this area, regularly dedicating their time to idea generation, researching, planning, reflecting and monitoring our progress on anti-oppression.