Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of inclusion, belonging, and societal transformation. Ever wondered what it truly takes to create a world where everyone not only belongs but thrives? You're not alone. Join me as we uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo, and share stories that resonate deep within. Ready to dive in. Whether you're sipping your morning coffee or winding down after a long day, let's connect, reflect, and inspire action together. Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach out to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk to share your insights or to join me on the show.

So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time to ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites. And today is episode 117 with the title infusing empathy. I have the absolute honor and privilege to welcome 2 guests today, Rita Hallgató and Fiona Dawson. Rita and Fiona are collaborators in D&I and storytelling. And when I asked Rita to describe her superpower, she said it is her impossible dreams and the strength of other women. And when I asked Fiona, she said this is her ability to listen and make people feel heard. Hello, Fiona.

Hello, Rita. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Jo. How are you? Joanne.

Hey. Well, as I said, this is my first venture into a a threesome, I guess. We can call this my first, polyamorous podcast if you want. So let's see how it goes. Yeah. My my show notes have gone out the window. We're off piece today, so anything can happen. So Rita, Fiona, infusing empathy, who wants to go first?

I'll jump in first, I think. Are you wanting to know how we infuse empathy?

Go on. Tell me your story. Yeah. Tell tell me your story. You're a DIY story. Tell tell us more about yourself.

So Rita and I started we realized that we are super our superpowers naturally come together to be able to have a really powerful impact when it comes to corporate DEI work. So my background was in corporate diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and accessibility. And then in 2010, I left the corporate environment and started off being an independent filmmaker. I have always recognized, of course, as many people do, the power of personal storytelling to be able to help build empathy and touch hearts of minds and, like, create change. So rather than lecturing people too much or, you know, criticizing people for not understanding or calling them haters, Instead, my work kind of pulls away from that, and I create films that help people feel someone else's lived experience so that you can find things in common and therefore build empathy. That work that I started doing has kind of merged into a corporate space. And so last year, Rita and I were working on a really cool project together, making a short film for a client who has international operations, and we got to create a film together for this client to be able to use for internal distribution. And we realized that our skill set and our background was just such a nice marriage as it were, where I'll let Rita talk about, you know, where she comes from.

But we found that when we can put these two perspectives together, we have an opportunity to be able to work with corporations and corporate D&I programs in a pretty unique way and actually move corporations towards creating short form story content and focusing on values and lived experience in order to help employees internally understand one another despite their their perceived differences and help them realize they actually have a lot more in common than we realize on the surface. So it's, extremely rewarding work. We get to get to know people, like, at an emotional level, and help them be more intimate with their personal storytelling than people are typically afforded within a corporate environment. So it's pretty cool.

It's pretty cool. Wow. I'm, I've got loads I wanna talk about there. Rita, do you wanna dovetail into, yeah, your part of that equation?