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Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 19 

 

Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey– 

from Jubilee to the Present 
 

Compiled by Bikita Mahdi and Thobekile Ncube, with much valued 

contributions from Andrew Philip, Anna Laszlo, Jude Collins, Karen 

Brown, Liz Muir, Marc Romyr Antoine, Miles Giljam, Oenone 

Chadburn and Rei Lemuel Crizaldo1 
 

 

In this article, we explore what decolonisation means to the faith-based organisation Tearfund, 

outlining several of the organisation’s practical efforts to intentionally “reset” and decolonise its 

corporate culture, organisational structures, and ways of working. The theological motivation behind 

this organisational journey was set in motion during its Jubilee year in 2017, which sparked a renewed 

focus on restoring relationships, including those affected by colonialism and/or racism. The article 

traces an arc from 2017 to 2023, outlining organisational initiatives that aim to shift power and 

maximise inclusion. The purpose of so doing is to assess how the organisation’s ongoing shift from 

being a British charity towards becoming an authentically inclusive, global organisation has fared. 

 

 
Tearfund is a Christian charity mobilising 

communities and churches worldwide to help end 

extreme poverty and injustice. To this end, staff work 

alongside churches and organisations in more than fifty 

countries around the world to restore the four broken 

relationships—with God, with nature, with ourselves and 

with others (Tearfund 2019b). The restoration of 

relationships inevitably includes relationships broken 

by colonialism, although it is important to acknowledge 

that understanding the consequences of colonialism 

“when these harms span centuries and still shape our 

lives” can be complicated (Otele 2023). 

 

Definition of Decolonisation 
There are many differing understandings of 

decolonisation. Its original use related to the physical 

and political process whereby colonies gained 

 
1

 Bikita Mahdi, business analyst, Strategy & Impact team, Tearfund UK; Thobekile Ncube, organisation development 

manager, Tearfund Zimbabwe; Andrew Philip, communications for development team lead, Tearfund UK; Anna 

Laszlo, Tearfund Chair of the Board; Jude Collins, editorial and audience inclusion lead in Tearfund UK’s 

communications for development team; Liz Muir, head of diversity and inclusion, Tearfund UK; Marc Romyer 

Antoine, Tearfund Country Director Haiti until December 2022; Miles Giljam, senior associate global campaigns 

team, Tearfund UK; Oenone Chadburn, Humanitarian & Resilience team lead, Tearfund UK; Rei Lemuel Crizaldo,  

theological education learning coordinator, Tearfund South East Asia.  
2

 “Postcolonial critics, Edward Said or Gayatri Spivak among them, argue that the coloniser enacted violence not by 

mere military force but by conquering historical representation. Those who were oppressed were forced to the 

margins, erased. ‘To decolonise the mind is therefore to empower the mind with the ability to self-represent: to 

understand one’s history, to write one’s history, to create one’s own representation’” (Danaparamita 2019). 

independence from colonial powers, and self-

determination and inviolability of borders became 

generally accepted norms. In the current era, many 

regard decolonisation as pertaining to a process of 

“undoing colonial rule,” or more specifically, becoming 

free of colonial ideology, as well as challenging existing 

“positions of power and dominant culture” (Warwick 

University 2018) and having the freedom to create 

representation.
2

   
Over a period of hundreds of years, the process of 

colonisation extracted wealth and resources on a vast 

scale with little regard for the devastation wreaked on 

indigenous knowledge, identities, and lives. It 

manifested differently depending on context and time 

period: from the unspeakably cruel and concentrated 

colonial period in the Congo starting in 1885 with 

Leopold II’s bloody reign, to the “500-year-long 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 20 

colonial project” in the Philippines (Berkeley Center 

for Religion, Peace and World Affairs 2022), to 

Ghanaians and Haitians taking pride in throwing off the 

yoke of colonisation, and to the many in Southern 

African countries who still view decolonisation as work 

in progress.
 3

 Unfortunately, the consequences of 

colonialism continue to reverberate across generations, 

including through the perpetuation of poverty, injustice, 

and inequality. Colonial practices can be unwittingly 

perpetuated, for example, through replication of 

dominant (often Western) cultural practices; through 

power imbalances and “inherited” hierarchies, and 

through shameful patterns of separation of faith 

communities. Given that the relief and development 

sector in the UK also “reflects the power relationships 

of colonialism” (House of Commons 2022), Tearfund 

has rightly been challenged about the enduring legacy 

of colonialism, as well as its own role in the West’s 

representation of itself (Zadeh-Cummings 2022). We 

have come to realise that we cannot do our work in ways 

that are just unless we decolonise our own practices and 

attitudes too.    

In terms of the moral and practical imperative for 

Tearfund, then, decolonisation takes on a dimension 

that is personal, pressing, and current. As one colleague 

from the Philippines observed: “Colonialism has 

caused deep wounds which will take a long time to 

heal—and both perpetrator and victim need healing.”
4

  

In this article, we explore what decolonisation 

means to Tearfund and outline some of our practical 

efforts to intentionally “reset” and decolonise our 

corporate culture, organisational structures, and ways of 

working. We use first person plural pronouns to refer 

to Tearfund since for us the purpose of this article is to 

tell a story about the journey that we have been on as an 

organisation. We trace an arc leading from 2017 to the 

present (2023) and assess how our ongoing shift from 

British charity towards an authentically inclusive, global 

organisation has fared. We detail specific organisational 

initiatives that aim to shift power and maximise 

inclusion.
5

 Before doing so, however, we briefly explain 

how Tearfund’s Jubilee period helped create a 

theological foundation for Tearfund’s organisational 

 
3

 “They talk to me about progress, about ‘achievements,’ diseases cured, improved standards of living. I am talking 

about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, 

religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out” (Césaire 1972). 
4

 Rei Lemuel Crizaldo, Personal communication, 1 November 2022. 
5

 The term “shifting power” is contentious, but within the sector tends to be used in relation to existing power 

structures that need to be challenged. Catriona Dejean, head of strategy at Tearfund, has pointed out that merely 

“shifting power” could inadvertently shift unhelpful power dynamics or bad practices from the UK to regions; the act 

of moving power elsewhere is insufficient, we need to change the very nature of the power dynamic itself by rethinking 

how we hold power, regardless of where we are sitting in the world. Thus, she notes that the term “recalibration of 

power” might be more helpful. 

renewal with a focus on restoring relationships, 

including those affected by colonialism and/or racism. 

 

Jubilee as Foundation 
In hindsight, Tearfund’s Jubilee year in 2018—its 

50th year—stands out as a significant spiritual milestone 

in the organisation’s decolonisation journey. Jubilee’s 

underlying theology is one of: 

 

justice: redemption and restoration; liberation 

and renewal…being radical and counter-

cultural—both in the ancient world and today—

and prophetic… [providing] a model for a 

community living well according to God’s will for 

his creation so that they can flourish and thrive 

as individuals and a community, and so that they 

can be an example, or light, to the rest of the 

world (Tearfund 2018c). 

 

This theology provided Tearfund with an 

opportunity to consciously decide how to conduct itself 

going forward and provided a foundational basis for 

doing so. Tearfund’s Jubilee preparations from 2017 

and the celebrations and reflections during 2018 not 

only created organisational, church, and supporter 

resources that helped Tearfund celebrate its 50th year, 

but also provided evidence and contemplation on the 

wider role of faith in development and on Tearfund’s 

place in that journey. Jubilee devotional prayer spaces 

and celebrations were held across the organisation, 

including a global Jubilee staff conference from which 

flowed organisational commitments based on what we 

believed God was calling us to focus on as individuals 

and as an organisation going forward; namely, freedom 

from injustice, oppression, and poverty; and restoration 

of relationships. 

Not only did Jubilee and its foundational theology 

provide us with the opportunity to reflect collectively as 

an organisation, but it also helped create a shared desire 

for organisational healing and renewal, which through 

the creation of various organisational initiatives also 

helped achieve greater receptiveness and collaboration 

with regard to anti-racism and decolonisation efforts. Dr 

Ruth Valerio, our Head of Global Advocacy and 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 21 

Influencing, wrote at the time: “We believe that the 

essence of Jubilee is its provision of a way of life for 

God’s redeemed, liberated people, enabling us to 

flourish and thrive through the restoration of our 

relationships with God, with an understanding of 

ourselves as God’s children, with one another, and with 

all creation” (Tearfund 2018b). Our Jubilee, with its 

shared principle of restoration, helped us, as an 

organisation, lay the foundation for a ‘reset’ of our 

structures, values, and enablers. It also strengthened 

our organisational resolve to embed diversity and 

inclusion (D&I) as a key organisational enabler,
6

 to live 

out our values at work and model the restoration of 

relationships, which has become an integral part of our 

decolonisation efforts. 

 

Restoration of Relationships 
Adopting a wider understanding of decolonisation 

is important to us as a faith-based international non-

governmental organisation (INGO), because our vision 

is to restore broken relationships, by extension also 

those relationships damaged by colonialism as well as 

practices and attitudes flowing from the legacy of 

colonialism. We have found it helpful to view 

decolonisation within Tearfund as a journey that 

requires us to continually work at (1) being as inclusive 

as possible, including fostering an inclusive culture and 

(2) shifting or recalibrating power.
7

 While we 

acknowledge that decolonisation as a concept is distinct 

from D&I work, in practice there is a significant overlap 

between the two. D&I helps create the necessary 

awareness and desire to change the “traditional, and 

exclusionary norms and culture of an institution” 

(Blackwood 2020). It is important to recognise, 

however, that decolonisation may have different 

nuances depending on history, culture, and socio-

political context; and that it can evoke different 

 
6

 Strategic enablers contribute to Tearfund being a vibrant, well-connected, global organisation that values diversity, is 

inclusive of all, supports staff development, and has spirituality and God at the centre. As of 2023, Tearfund’s strategic 

enablers are: People and Culture, Diversity and Inclusion, Digital and Technology, Strategic Networks and 

Partnerships, Strategy, Impact and Evidence. 
7

 Initiated at the 2016 Global Summit on Community Philanthropy, “Shift the Power” is a growing movement of 

people challenging the traditional top-down paradigm, ways of working and decision-making within international 

development aid and philanthropy. The movement calls for new behaviours, mindsets and work approaches that shift 

power and resources, and promote more equitable and people-led change. 
8

 It is important to acknowledge that some, such as Jeroo Billimoria, view “localisation” as an unhelpful term. 

Billimoria suggests that the term “ecosystem development” be used instead, and in the place of “decolonisation,” she 

suggests using the term “proximate leaders” (Ainsworth and Byatnal 2022). 
9

 The Friendship Model is a highly relational and catalytic approach to movement-building and Abundant Africa is a 

development process and coalition toward an African restorative economy, one that functions within environmental 

limits, ensures everyone can meet their basic needs, and prevents unreasonable inequality. 

 

responses and emotions, depending on people’s lived 

experiences. 

Improving inclusion and shifting power to restore 

relationships have been foundational to many recent 

organisational change processes at Tearfund. We know 

that the legacy of colonialism has created an imbalance 

of power, which means we need to be intentionally 

aware of our own use of power in order to better walk 

alongside others and actively guard against the distorting 

effects of power and hierarchy on relationships. Where 

there are imbalances of power, those with power (which 

can manifest itself through location, job title, race, 

gender, ethnicity, ability, use of language, etc.), need to 

recognise their privilege and work to open the space for 

the benefit of others. 

In practice, some of the intentional power shifts we 

are trying to effect are about understanding where 

power lies and decision-making takes place in order to 

enable the outworking of being both a global and local 

organisation. We have set a course so as to move the 

centre-ground from West-practice to rest-of-world-

practice, from UK-based dominance to regional and 

country ownership, from centralisation to localisation,
8

 

from importation to indigenisation, from donor to 

participant, and from extraction and control to 

communion and friendship. For example, capacity 

assessment processes used by Tearfund and other 

INGOs, are rooted in West-practice with little room for 

contextualisation. This can be contrasted with the 

Friendship Model and Abundant Africa,
9

 both of which 

were shaped by people in local contexts. Many of these 

shifts have been underway at Tearfund for many years, 

and while much work still lies ahead, in the five years 

since our Jubilee, significant acceleration has taken 

place. To say that our decolonisation journey has always 

followed a grand master plan would be misleading and 

misrepresent the messiness of cultural and attitude 

change over time. It would be more accurate to 

characterise it as one of gradual emergence and often 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 22 

separate decisions and initiatives, including the ones 

highlighted in this article, coalescing into what has 

clearly become the journey we are on. 

The organisational initiatives listed below and 

covered in more depth over the remainder of this 

article, serve as important, if imperfect, examples of 

how Tearfund has practically tried to shift power and 

widen inclusion, while also aiming to become more 

effective as an organisation and more sensitive to those 

we serve: 

 

● embedding D&I as a powerful organisational 

enabler, 

● transforming organisational leadership with our 

Leading Tearfund Together (LTT) initiative, 

● the International Review (the organisational 

change process Tearfund underwent from the end 

of 2017 to 2020 in order to shift power and 

decision-making away from the UK and towards 

regions, countries and communities), 

● building a board of trustees with significant 

representation from countries and regions where 

Tearfund works, 

● contextual approaches in agency and allyship, 

specifically the Asian Friendship Model and 

Abundant Africa, 

● intentionality around inclusive language, 

translation, and communications practices and 

policies, and 

● localisation of our humanitarian work. 

 

Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) 

In 2017, Tearfund embarked on a proactive 

journey of placing diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and 

representation at the heart of its organisational enablers 

and values, as well as shifting power and decision-

making away from the UK. It was borne from a 

recognition that “as a British, Christian organisation, 

operating globally in a post-colonial context, we needed 

to consider how we have been shaped by broader 

historical and political ideologies, and how the legacy of 

these continues to impact our organisational systems 

and social norms” (Tearfund 2018a). 

Our DNA as a faith-based organisation, including 

our belief that everyone is created in the image of God, 

galvanised our resolve to restore relationships and 

challenge injustice, including that caused by colonial 

practices and attitudes. Our worldview that the injustice 

and marginalisation that cause poverty are not God’s 

plan is foundational to our determination to disrupt 

racist, exploitative, and unjust practices. Our 

engagement in a wider conversation about D&I and 

decolonisation has enabled us to look with fresh insight 

on our own cultural context to better align and deepen 

our responses to these evils. 

As part of Tearfund’s anti-racism work, we have 

come to acknowledge that colonialism continues to 

contribute to inequality, given that “racism manifests in 

the very structure of international aid” (House of 

Commons 2022). In 2021, Tearfund renewed its 

commitment to “deliver programmes in inclusive ways; 

taking practical steps to shift power and decision-

making in regions and countries where we work, and 

evaluate the philosophy and culture of our work” 

(Tearfund 2022a). Having D&I as one of our key 

organisational enablers has allowed it to be championed 

at multiple levels of the organisation, from the board to 

teams and individuals. A Tearfund D&I committee, 

established in 2021 for an initial two years, has also 

raised the organisational profile of D&I work.   

The appointment of a dedicated D&I lead 

reporting directly to the executive team and also 

operating as our CEO’s chief of staff, has helped to 

embed and advance D&I initiatives and culture change 

across the organisation. This culture change has been 

supported by regions and groups through group-

specific annual diversity and inclusion action plans, 

regular drop-in sessions, deep-dives on D&I topics, 

D&I workshops within regions and groups, and a 

weekly anti-racism conversation. The conversations 

support staff to explore D&I topics and offer safe spaces 

for questions, discussion, and collective learning. Key 

to these plans have been training and empowering a 

cohort of D&I mobilisers across Tearfund, with a 

mandate to make space within our team rhythms for 

hosting D&I conversations.   

During the time of the global outcry about racism, 

after the murder of George Floyd, Tearfund responded 

with the capability we had at that time. While we had 

been taking positive steps forward as an organisation 

prior to this, it enabled us to reflect on our 

shortcomings. We acknowledged that even though 

racial and ethnic injustice are key drivers of poverty, we 

had not done enough in the past to dismantle the 

systems, policies, and processes that keep systemic 

racism alive. The legacy of colonialism that contributes 

to inequality in many of the countries where we work 

has tainted the experiences of people who live in or 

have their roots in these places. 

We were deeply grateful that we already had a D&I 

framework embedded within the organisation, because 

it helped us hold honest and brave conversations at 

such a sensitive time. Nevertheless, there is much more 

to do. While the championing of organisational 

accountability in relation to D&I has progressed well, 

our efforts to develop metrics for D&I purposes have 

been hampered by the lack of data on gender, ethnicity, 

and disability. This depends on the willingness of 

employees to share this information, and 

acknowledging that, in some contexts, revealing racial 

or ethnic data can expose people to risks and even 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 23 

endanger people’s lives. Additionally, as a Christian 

organisation, Tearfund is acutely aware of the spectrum 

of Christian views on disability, which can also make 

disclosure difficult. In order to ensure that we 

understand who is within our workforce and to help us 

target interventions, we need data. It helps to identify 

whether action is needed and can sometimes provide 

the legal basis necessary to use interventions such as 

positive action in recruitment to ensure we hire a more 

diverse workforce. Because we do not want anyone to 

feel at risk as a result of disclosing diversity data, we 

must find alternative data-sets and pathways to ensure 

people are fully represented. 

Our intentional engagement with the Black 

Majority Church
10

 has been another important part of 

our inclusion journey. In the UK context, we made a 

conscious decision not to be complicit in reproducing 

past shameful and unjust patterns of separation of faith 

communities according to race. Engaging with and 

serving the global church, including the Black Majority 

Church in the UK, has led to the creation of The Well, 

in recognition of the powerful encounter between Jesus 

and the Samaritan woman at the well which overcame 

so many of the cultural, racial, and political barriers. 

This powerful collaboration between Tearfund and 

Black Majority Churches and Christians of African and 

Caribbean Heritage has been described by Bishop 

Joshua NK Banda of Northmead Pentecostal 

Assemblies of God (PAoG) church, Zambia as “a 

journey that will help us fulfil our vision to see every 

PAoG church become a centre of transformation” 

(Tearfund, 2022b). The chair of The Well committee 

also sits on our board, as part of our UK engagement 

work, with the aim for Tearfund to be much more 

reflective of the diversity of God’s church across the 

world. 

 

Leading Tearfund Together  

During the Jubilee year, and as Tearfund walked 

through the International Review (see below), we 

recognised that the organisation was entering a season 

of considerable change and adaptation and that this 

called for significant investment in our global leadership 

group, representing senior leadership from all 

geographical regions. The following year, funds were 

allocated to equip, support, and encourage our global 

leadership to lead together, on behalf of Tearfund. This 

programme, named Leading Tearfund Together 

(LTT), started in 2018 and included core components 

on leading self, leading team and organisation, and 

sustaining and embedding change. The vision for this 

programme continues to encourage and foster a cadre 

of senior leaders who are 

 
10

 Black Majority churches in the UK originated in the early twentieth century under the leadership of those who 

migrated to the country mostly from Africa and the Caribbean. For more information, see Olofinjana 2010. 

 

● aspiring to work together and have a “One 

Tearfund” mindset and approach, 

● distinctively Christ-centred and servant-hearted in 

engagement and relationships, 

● focused on aligning work to Tearfund’s priorities, 

and 

● playing to each other's strengths and releasing the 

rest of Tearfund’s employees to play to their own 

strengths. 

 

LTT has been running continuously for five years 

now, equipping and supporting our leaders and creating 

a single leadership cohort, with regular training and 

collaboration time together. LTT has helped foster the 

understanding that Tearfund is not led from the UK, 

instead placing an emphasis on leading Tearfund “from 

where you are.” This formed a vital part of our 

decolonisation journey, because we consciously wanted 

to shift power away from our UK-based office toward 

where leadership was based around the world. The 

result of the leadership development process of these 

first three cohorts was that it became clear that this 

group of leaders, the country directors, regional 

directors and “heads of” should collectively form the 

global leadership team that was inaugurated at Focus 

Fortnight in June 2019 by Tearfund’s CEO, Nigel 

Harris. LTT and the formation of the global leadership 

team, together with the International Review (see 

below) has formed a vital part of our decolonisation 

journey as we consciously shift power away from our 

UK-based office toward leadership based in the 

countries and regions where we serve. 

The first three cohorts of leaders graduated in the 

autumn of 2019, ensuring that the sense of global unity, 

leadership skills, confidence, and mandate were honed 

and ready for the pandemic period that followed. An 

exercise in “listening to God” formed a part of the final 

module and led to a significant set of scriptures and 

prophetic pictures being shared (a boat leaving safe 

harbour, an orchestra, a tree with deep roots, and a tent 

spreading wide and strongly pegged) that served to 

encourage the whole organisation through the early 

months of the pandemic. 

Tearfund has benefited greatly from this 

investment in its global leadership cohort, fostering a 

“one Tearfund” approach, a deepening respect and 

unity across the global leadership team, and growing 

leadership competence and confidence based as much 

on personal spiritual formation as on well-regarded 

leadership theory and practice. Going forward, we will 

continue to adapt the format to improve greater global 

inclusivity and participation. 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 24 

 

International Review 

A listening exercise conducted by Tearfund’s then 

newly appointed international director led to The 

International Review (Tearfund 2019), which 

commenced in 2017 with the aim of transforming 

Tearfund into an organisation more reflective of its 

global work, including moving power and decision-

making closer to the communities it serves. The specific 

aims of this major change initiative included: 

 

● creation of a more decentralised, global 

organisation, 

● location of decision-making and resources as close 

as possible to the communities the organisation 

serves, 

● movement of teams out of the UK into regions, 

staffed primarily from within the region, 

● changed and improved organisational processes, 

procedures, and systems, 

● clarification of decision-making and accountability 

through a Decision-making and Accountability 

Framework (DMAF), and 

● creation of a set of shared organisational behaviours 

and characteristics.   

 

Alongside the structural changes brought by the 

International Review, Tearfund characteristics were 

developed to help provide a framework for our 

interactions with each other, support our D&I efforts, 

and forge a better organisational culture. These 

characteristics (create space for God and ourselves, 

learn and grow, include and value each other, work 

together, communicate bravely, and act with integrity) 

were worked into various Bible studies, team activities, 

annual appraisals and other key processes and 

organisational rhythms.  

They are the behaviours we aspire to. They are 

built on a number of principles and aspirations we 

believe are critical to our vision and mission, which in 

turn have helped us maintain the momentum of change 

processes like the International Review and subsequent 

corporate initiatives aimed at shifting power. These 

characteristics continue to be a useful basis for helping 

us lean into difficult conversations about power and 

inclusion with grace and openness. 

A recent external report concluded that the 

International Review has indeed helped make 

Tearfund a more inclusive global organisation, enabling 

a power shift and bringing decision-making closer to 

programmes, partners, and communities, as well as 

increasing our focus, energy, and agility to respond to 

the needs of those we serve (Maramba 2021). But the 

job is not yet finished. The report highlights the work 

that must still be done to reduce organisational 

complexity and the burden of our processes and 

systems, particularly in light of the introduction of 

additional compliance and risk controls in the wake of 

The Charities Commission report into the Oxfam 

safeguarding scandal (Maramba 2021). 

A live issue for us, as with many other INGOs, is 

how we measure impact in ways that encourage 

inclusion and ownership, and measure complexity in 

ways that reduce any sense of extraction. We also need 

to press even further into global representation and 

inclusion work within our operational structures, given 

that regional power structures can unintentionally 

replicate colonial patterns of behaviour. There is an 

ongoing conversation within Tearfund about how best 

to achieve mindset change and adaptation of working 

practices across all parts of the organisation, given the 

shift in power brought about as a consequence of the 

International Review.  

 

Board of Trustees 

In 2018, when Tearfund appointed its first ever 

female chair of the board, it also decided significantly 

to increase representation from countries and regions 

where we work. As a Christian faith-based INGO, 

Tearfund recruited people from across the diversity of 

churches that we serve. The board thus decided that it 

should be constituted with no fewer than a third females 

and no fewer than a third from majority-world heritage. 

The board took this decision as a way to encourage it 

towards more intentional consideration and 

recruitment of a range of board members from 

different backgrounds, cultures, and experience.   

Over time, the board has become more 

representative of the communities and churches we 

work with, bringing better quality of debate, discussions, 

and inputs. The board now has one South African 

national based in Johannesburg, one Rwandan based in 

Kigali who is also a church pastor, and one Indian 

trustee based in Chennai. It includes a former refugee; 

another who was forced to flee his country due to 

internal violence; another with personal experience of 

deep poverty. One trustee is a leader from the Elim 

church network and another from the Redeemed 

Christian Church of God. The board and executive 

team formally assess the effectiveness of the board 

annually, commenting in recent years on the value of 

the increased diversity and experience on the board; 

informal comments have also noted that the quality and 

rigour of debate has increased as a result of the 

increased range of views and perspectives around the 

table. A stronger and more energised commitment to 

D&I is reflected in the board members themselves, 

offering expertise from finance to theology to 

marketing, including personal experience of poverty 

and refugee status, and bringing together voices from 

three different continents. With board members 

located across the globe, scheduling board meetings has 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 25 

not always been easy, but COVID-19 lockdowns 

accelerated the adoption of online meetings.   

Our board members bring a wide range of 

professional experiences along with very different lived 

experiences. Having board members allocated to 

specific working committees (e.g., impact, fundraising, 

theology) utilises their deep and specific skills to hold 

Tearfund to account for progress on specific initiatives. 

Other helpful learnings from the board’s experiences 

over the last four years include: 

 

● the benefits of having “board buddies” who look out 

for each other on the board, offering informal 

support and helping build a sense of belonging and 

trust, 

● being open to non-Western approaches of 

governance, given that governance could look 

different from a global perspective versus a UK 

perspective, and 

● creating more diverse shortlists when recruiting new 

board members, with selection panels intentionally 

considering the value of broad diversity of 

experience and location in the decisions they make. 

 

Tearfund has greatly benefitted from having a 

much more diverse and dynamic board and this may 

offer some insights on initiatives to help further 

globalise Tearfund’s executive team. Improving 

representation across leadership and decision-making 

positions can be a slow process, so to achieve greater 

global representation of leadership groups going 

forward we are working with our staff council, 

recruitment team, and hiring managers to see how this 

can be accelerated.   

 

Contextual Approaches in Agency and Allyship 

Tearfund wants to play its part in restoring 

relationships and disrupting colonial patterns of 

behaviour. In our work alongside communities and 

churches, we remain vigilant to the distorting effects of 

power, and consciously aim to shift power and agency 

in favour of the communities and churches we serve. In 

all our work across regions and countries we prayerfully 

seek God’s guidance in how to do this with humility, 

wisdom, and grace, serving God’s church in 

transformative mission and putting church and 

community transformation at the heart of what we do. 

Over time, with the help of our friends and allies, we 

have developed contextualised approaches aimed at 

serving the local church from where it finds itself, rather 

than where Tearfund is at. Contextual and locally-

designed approaches include the Friendship Model in 

Asia and the Abundant Africa coalition for a restorative, 

sustainable, and abundant future. The aim of these two 

approaches, as well as other highly contextualised and 

locally-designed approaches, guided by our church and 

community transformation principles with Biblical 

theology and holistic change at their core, is to enable 

the organisation to continue working towards a peaceful 

and inclusive world with restored relationships at its 

heart. 

 

Friendship Model: The friendship model is the 

partnership model that Tearfund uses in East & South 

East Asia—a model that seeks to remove the power 

relationships inherent within the donor-recipient 

model. At the heart of the friendship model is a 

recognition that by virtue of who we are, regardless of 

our intentions, we could unintentionally wield power 

over the communities we aim to serve or over the 

partners we serve with, and that we therefore 

consciously and continuously need to consider how to 

shift power. The analogy of a dinner table laid out for 

guests has been useful to our approach. It is not merely 

about inviting more people to the table, but laying the 

table for others to serve themselves, intentionally 

stepping back from our power and deconstructing the 

way we do things. This means shifting from funding to 

befriending, and from a logic of control to a logic of 

trust, where the trust must be intrinsic because of a 

belief in the good of the cause, rather than because 

there is a business case for it. Key to the Friendship 

Model is considering how conversations are 

introduced, how they are held, where they are held, 

who decides what is important, who is responsible for 

the actioning of decisions, and who monitors progress. 

This approach helps to build healthy, interdependent 

relationships instead of “colonial” relationships in 

which things are done for and to people rather than with 

people. Under the friendship model, Tearfund’s 

partners set the agenda, deciding what conversations 

should occur and how, where meetings are held, who is 

invited, and so forth. When Tearfund is invited to the 

table, it comes as a participant. Tearfund’s primary role 

is to listen—not as a donor coming to pay for what has 

already been decided, but as a friend, offering 

suggestions as appropriate, but on the understanding 

that these can be accepted or rejected by partners. 

This also requires recalibration of the balance 

between storytelling and reporting, being mindful of 

fulfilling due diligence requirements without 

overburdening communities and churches. This means 

delighting in sharing and hearing stories as friends on a 

journey together, instead of being “monitored and 

evaluated.” The friendship model offers a post-

development, post-colonial foundation for developing 

healthy, reciprocal relationships with everyone, 

recognising that we are all made in the image of God. It 

is about shaping each other, learning from each other, 

and connecting with each other to experience the 

fullness of life.   

 

https://abundant.africa/about/


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 26 

Abundant Africa: Abundant Africa is an advocacy 

movement that developed out of Tearfund’s church 

and community transformation work for a future as 

envisaged by people living in countries across Africa. 

An African-centric and African-designed approach, it 

emerged from a Tearfund devotional space to counter 

the often pessimistic or saviourist narratives that 

dominate so much of the international press coverage 

about Africa. The Abundant Africa vision was 

developed as a counter-narrative to what some 

recognise as colonial framing by taking inspiration from 

black consciousness and radical black philosopher-

leaders such as Steve Biko and Frantz Fanon.  

During the emergence of the vision for an 

Abundant Africa, African theologians convened by 

Tearfund proposed an approach centred around the 

creation narrative with God and humankind working 

together, placing agency within the hands of the 

oppressed and not the oppressor. As a continent and 

people, the vision is for Africa and African people to 

reclaim their agency as people made in the image of 

God in a way that resonates with the next generation.
11

 
It embeds political thinking, identity, theology, 

discipleship, and movement building into an 

authentically African narrative. 

 

Language and Translation 

Language and power are related. The languages we 

use, and the ways we use them, can create or perpetuate 

harmful power dynamics and can determine whether 

people feel included or excluded. Feelings of exclusion 

can arise, for example, when interpretation is not 

offered at corporate communications events to cater for 

people whose first, second, or third language is not 

English. Recognising the potential for language to cause 

harm, Tearfund has developed guidelines to help 

ensure that the organisation’s written and verbal 

communications are respectful and do not negatively 

affect people’s identity, rights, or dignity. This includes 

the use of clear, accessible language and the avoidance 

of outdated terms and harmful stereotypes. This 

approach is often referred to in INGO circles as the 

“decolonisation” of language.   

Tearfund has also recently approved a language 

and translation policy that supports the decolonisation 

of language as well as other inclusive linguistic practices. 

These include: 

 

 
11

 As part of decolonisation discussions around the Abundant Africa Report (2021), which was spearheaded by Miles 

Giljam, different regional nuances emerged that were important for the framing of the report and subsequent 

movement-building initiatives. 
12

 Editors’ note: For more on capacity building, see the contribution by Toluwanimi Jaiyebo-Okoro in this issue. 

● increased emphasis on languages other than 

English, including growing the number of resources 

that are written and developed in other languages, 

● proportionate investment in translation and 

interpretation to enhance both internal and external 

communications, and 

● regular assessment of Tearfund’s language and 

communication needs as the organisation becomes 

increasingly linguistically diverse. 

 

Speaking about the language policy in her recent 

book, academic and researcher Wine Tesseur (2022, 

40) notes, “Tearfund’s initiative indicates a potentially 

significant shift towards a more overt consideration of 

the link between language and inclusion, which 

positions Tearfund as a leading example in the INGO 

sector.” 

Challenges remain in relation to how best to fund 

the cost of translation and interpretation as demand for 

these services rises across the organisation. But when 

translation is viewed through a D&I lens, what might 

initially seem like cost overheads become investments 

in inclusivity. 

 

Humanitarian Work  

Tearfund’s humanitarian teams engaged with 

decolonisation earlier than other parts of the 

organisation, on account of the ongoing debate within 

the sector about the nexus between development and 

emergency response, and how best to protect and 

support people when conflict and crisis threaten to 

overwhelm national capacity and resources. It is 

important to note that narratives around “capacity 

building” can either uphold colonial logics or be 

intentionally decolonial themselves; it is the latter that 

we strive for.
12

 

For Tearfund, like many other agencies that 

responded to the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 

2010, events there became a turning point in realising 

the extent to which the collective humanitarian 

response system trampled on national capacity, 

undermined local agency, and missed opportunities to 

accompany local partners. Even though colonisation 

was not the primary focus of the analysis of the 

experiences in Haiti, it is clear that if a decolonisation 

lens had been applied to the Haitian humanitarian 

intervention, it could have made a huge difference to 

the tone, quality, and effectiveness of the response. It is 

generally agreed that the 2010 Haiti earthquake 

response lacked accountability, sensitivity, and a 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 27 

localisation focus on the part of donors and responders. 

These lessons, in addition to various reports about 

subsequent missed opportunities in Pakistan, South 

Sudan, and Nepal, provided a strong impetus for the 

2016 World Humanitarian Summit enshrining 

localisation in its outcomes (Zadeh-Cummings 2022), 

and the subsequent Charter for Change
13

 and The 

Grand Bargain,
14

 both of which are commitments to 

transform the way the humanitarian sector operates, 

and both of which Tearfund has signed up to. 

Coinciding with the 2016 World Humanitarian 

Summit, Tearfund began work as part of the START 

Network
15

 to “create systems change within the 

humanitarian system” through a series of “shifting the 

power” projects. These initiatives aimed to improve the 

humanitarian architecture by building the capacity of 

local counterparts according to global standards, using 

self-assessment and locally owned capacity frameworks 

for local NGOs. Many of the innovative programmes 

that Start Network piloted helped push the boundaries 

of paradigm change. The Shifting the Power project 

continually built on national partners’ voices, on their 

choices and how they wanted to strengthen their 

capacity against their own strategic goal to be national 

responders. This contrasted greatly to what 

international aid responders perceived to be the 

shortcomings of national actors, often viewed through 

sub-contracts where international aid agencies 

benchmarked a partner's performance against a series 

of standards designed by international actors. 

Tearfund chose to continue shifting the power 

through a process called Disaster Management 

Capacity Assessment (DMCA). Investing in national 

capacity through local and regional staff members was 

always a strategic goal, but it required a systematic 

approach. The establishment of a Capacity 

Strengthening Fund was a step towards this. The 

internal fund provides resourcing and funding for 

DMCA in countries where Tearfund works, with a view 

to rolling it out across all of these countries by 2025. 

Since the Haiti earthquake in 2010, Tearfund had 

already embarked on a trajectory away from expat-

heavy disaster response teams towards integration of 

 
13

 See https://charter4change.org.  
14

 See https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/content/grand-bargain-hosted-iasc.  
15

 See https://startnetwork.org/about. 
16

 Accompaniment is generally taken to mean working side-by-side with local communities in a humble attitude of 

learning. In the humanitarian context, it means moving away from directly responding, to working with or alongside 

our partners to enable them to directly respond. It also involves sharing understanding of international humanitarian 

aid structures and standards, and supporting partners to apply directly for funding themselves. The accompaniment 

model also formalises roles that provide technical support, such as those that support local partners to develop their 

own capacity strengthening plans funded by Tearfund. 
17

 Cyclone Idai was a devastating cyclone that hit Mozambique in March 2019. 

development, resilience, and response at the most local 

levels possible.  

Accelerating the shift towards a lean Humanitarian 

Support Team (HST) with a focus on accompaniment 

was difficult and painful for both the HST and regional 

teams,
16

 and some of the steepest learning and 

adaptation had to occur while simultaneously 

responding to large-scale disasters such as Cyclone 

Idai.
17

 The most challenging changes relate to the 

requirement for regional teams to build up local 

humanitarian capacity in preparation for crises, given 

the pressing weight of development priorities, whilst the 

global HST team’s limited involvement in the later 

phases of the humanitarian response cycle at times 

proved disheartening to individuals who had to step 

back from parts of the disaster response cycle they were 

previously accustomed to leading. 

Over time, teams and staff members have settled 

into new ways of working. In 2019 the Resilience Unit 

merged with the Humanitarian Support Team to form 

the Humanitarian and Resilience team (HaRT) to drive 

a greater focus on readiness and local resilience in the 

face of increasing severity and frequency of crises. An 

increasing requirement is for responders and resilience 

workers to be based as locally as possible. This 

trajectory was already set in motion with the Inter-Asia 

Ministerial conference ASEAN declaration “by Asia for 

Asia” in 2018, allowing only ASEAN passport holders 

to be responders during the Sulawesi tsunami. 

Tearfund’s Humanitarian and Resilience team has 

actively sought to work within the spirit of this 

declaration, increasingly shifting from internationally 

pooled response teams towards accompanying national 

responders where possible. This approach was 

vindicated during the Covid lockdowns, when borders 

were shut, and only local and national assistance was 

available to communities.  

Tearfund recognises the importance of 

deconstructing stereotypical Western representations 

of “aid recipients” and is actively engaged in correcting 

this through mindful use of images and language. Some 

in the aid sector have suggested shifting from 

“humanitarian aid” toward a “reparations” movement 

to redress colonial wounds and structural consequences 

https://charter4change.org/
https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/content/grand-bargain-hosted-iasc
about:blank


Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 28 

such as inequality, injustice, poverty, and conflict. 

These are all issues we continue to grapple with at 

Tearfund.     

Tearfund continues to move away from globally 

directed work in favour of contextually determined 

goals and priorities. The increased remit for 

nationalised country offices to fundraise locally could 

inadvertently present a dilemma in the humanitarian 

sphere. Establishing national offices could in theory 

displace home-grown organisations, or unintentionally 

reduce the funding and resource pool for national 

partners. We remain mindful about reverting to “donor 

response” mode during times of crisis, instead 

championing, accompanying, and intentionally making 

space for national actors to access their own 

humanitarian funding as far as possible. We still need 

to fine-tune which functions should be held globally, 

regionally, and locally, especially given the need for 

long-term capacity. We have completed our country 

level emergency response guidelines or procedures and 

are launching a framework for achieving best quality 

preparedness and response practice whilst building in 

locally led adaptability.  

Our goal is ultimately to localise all response 

capacity, recognising that given the relatively small size 

of our organisation we will need to maximise advocacy 

and influencing opportunities and alliances to 

strengthen disaster and crisis response capacity, 

legalisation, and prioritisation. These alliances 

increasingly include members of the Tearfund family, 

the Integral Alliance, and the START network, as well 

as other civil society organisations and governments. 

Going forward, Tearfund remains committed to 

localisation and national response capacity as a 

priority,
18

 but the precise path our decolonised journey 

will take within the humanitarian response system is not 

yet certain.   

 

Conclusion 
If “decolonisation is understood as to release what 

was taken over” (Sarmiento 2022), we know there is still 

much to restore and to make right, requiring 

continuous re-imagining, renewal, and restoration. 
Colonisation destroyed identities for the sake of 

empire—artificially elevating some as superior whilst 

treating others as inferior. Repenting now of this 

destruction requires us to work toward the restoration 

of identity, and not only those of others, but also our 

own internal identities as individuals and who we are 

and what we do as Tearfund. 

 
18

 This is in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030), adopted by the UN member 

states in 2015. 
19

 Miles Giljam, Personal notes, Tearfund Staff Conference, June 2017. 
20

 A sabbath day is a calendar day when all staff stop work in order to pray and reflect together. 

Since our Jubilee year, so much has happened 

within Tearfund to improve inclusion, globalise our 

culture, and shift power. After fifty years of service, we 

were able to pause and reflect on how we wanted to 

conduct ourselves in future years, including how best to 

grapple with our collective colonial legacy. Looking 

back, our Jubilee period was indeed a key turning point, 

where as an organisation we allowed the pain of that 

legacy to emerge through honest conversations within 

and across teams, prayers, and reflection globally. Only 

through such a process would people feel ready to be 

vulnerable and share with others how they felt in 

relation to Tearfund as an organisation, both 

individually and collectively. 

During our Jubilee year, a spiritual shift happened 

as we prayed together across the globe, possibly 

unwittingly achieving a spiritual milestone during our 

decolonisation journey, with positive reverberations 

that we could not possibly foresee at that point. It seems 

God in his grace used our Jubilee process to start a 

renewal process amongst us. Looking back, the path 

Tearfund chose feels like an example of Jubilee in 

action, where those with power voluntarily agree to reset 

the power relationships.
19

  Our Jubilee was a time of 

release, restitution, and relationship-building, following 

which rest was needed. It thus provided the impetus for 

Tearfund establishing organisational sabbath days to 

allow for periodic reflection and to create space for true 

vulnerability and healing, towards a new Tearfund 

identity to deliver our vision.
20

 

Despite significant progress in our hearts, minds, 

and behaviours towards a globally inclusive culture and 

workplace with accompanying power shifts well 

underway, Tearfund’s decolonisation journey is by no 

means complete. We still need to reduce the 

complexity of our systems and processes as we 

transition from being a donor toward becoming an 

invited friend and accompanier. Further, we operate 

within a system that currently demands systems of 

reporting in ways that this journey may lead us to 

question, but we cannot alone remove those demands 

or fail to comply with them—decolonised systems of 

accountability remain an ongoing challenge for the 

sector as a whole. Overall, we still have much healing 

and restoration to embrace and work toward, with many 

more practical obstacles to overcome.  

Despite inevitable bumps in the road, we believe in 

the benefits of becoming a truly inclusive, diverse, and 

global organisation. We continue to keep an open mind 

as to what Tearfund will look like in decades to come, 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 5(1), Summer 2023  

 
 
Mahdi and Ncube, et al., Tearfund’s Decolonisation Journey–from Jubilee to the Present 29 

but we remain confident in our role supporting, serving, 

and convening the global church, even as our 

decolonisation journey accelerates.  

 

 

 

References 

 

Ainsworth, David and Amruta Byatnal. 2022. 

“Localization? I hate the word. Decolonization? I 

hate that even more.” Devex. November 21. 

https://www.devex.com/news/localization-i-hate-

the-word-decolonization-i-hate-that-even-more-

104340.  

Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace and World 

Affairs. 2022. “500 Years of Christianity and the 

Global Filipin@: Postcolonial Perspectives: 

Reappropriation, Resistance, and 

Decolonization.” Webinar, February 9. 

Blackwood, Lauren. 2020. “The Reality of 

Diversification Without Beginning the Process of 

Decolonisation.” Diversity Digest, May 28. 
https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/diversity/2020/05/28/the-reality-

of-diversification-without-beginning-the-process-of-

decolonisation/#:~:text=Without%20decolonising%20w

ork%2C%20diversification%20exists,the%20workplace

%20and%20the%20classroom 

Césaire, Aimé. 1972 [1955]. “Between Colonizer and 

Colonized.” In Discourse on Colonialism. 

Translated by Joan Pinkham. New York: Monthly 

Review Press, 20-25. 

Danaparamita, Aria. 2019. “Indonesia: decolonising 

the mind – Counter Narratives.” Histori Bersama. 

January 30. 

Giljam, Miles et al. 2021. Abundant Africa: Our 
decade to shape the African century. 

https://abundant.africa/wp-

content/uploads/2021/06/Abundant-Africa-Our-

decade-to-shape-the-African-Century.pdf  

Olofinjana, Israel Oluwole. 2010. “The History of 

Black Majority Churches in London.” Building 
on History: Religion in London. The Open 

University. 

Otele, Olivette. 2023. “The Logic of Slavery 

Reparations.” The Guardian. March 31, 2023. 

Sarmiento, Emily. 2022. “Decolonizing Justice.” The 

Justice Conference. 

Tearfund. 2018a. Diversity and Inclusion. Internal 

Report. 

Tearfund. 2018b. Jubilee Dinner Booklet.  

Tearfund. 2018c. Theology of Jubilee. Internal paper. 

Tearfund. 2019a. International Review Focus Areas. 
Internal document.  

Tearfund. 2019b. Understanding Poverty: Restoring 
Broken Relationships. 

Tearfund. 2022a. Anti-Racism Update 2021-2022. 

Internal document. 

Tearfund. 2022b. The Well Strategy 2022-2025. 

Internal document. 

Maramba, Mojgan. 2021. International Review: 
Assessment and Recommendations v2.1. for 

Tearfund. 

Tesseur, Wine. 2022. Translation as Social Justice: 

Translation Policies and Practices in Non-
Governmental Organisations. New York: 

Routledge. 

United Kingdom. House of Commons. International 

Development Committee. 2022. “Racism in the 

Aid Sector.” First Report of Session 2022-23. 

June 23. 

Warwick University, “What is Decolonising 

Methodology?” n.d. 

Zadeh-Cummings, Nazanin. 2022. “Through the 

looking glass: Coloniality and mirroring in 

localisation.” The Humanitarian Leader, 

Working paper 031. November. 
 

 

 

Bikita Mahdi is a business analyst and horizon scanner 

in Tearfund's Strategy & Impact team working on a 

wide range of corporate projects. Prior to joining 

Tearfund, she worked for Andersen Consulting (now 

Accenture), Bloomberg News, and the London Stock 

Exchange. She is an alumna of Stellenbosch University 

and the London School of Economics. Bikita is a 

global citizen living in London, with a keen interest in 

sustainable development, international relations, and 

economics. 

 

Thobekile Ncube is an organisation development 

manager at Tearfund Zimbabwe. She holds a 

bachelor’s in business administration (financial 

management) from Solusi University, a postgraduate 

diploma in organisation development practice from 

Roffey Park (UK), is a certified facilitator, and is 

currently studying for her master’s in organisation 

development at Roffey Park. She has supported 

programme leaders working with children at risk in 

eleven countries, as well as the organisational 

development of NGOs in Zimbabwe and eight other 

countries in Southeast Africa. She lives in Harare, 

Zimbabwe. 
 

 

https://www.devex.com/news/localization-i-hate-the-word-decolonization-i-hate-that-even-more-104340
https://www.devex.com/news/localization-i-hate-the-word-decolonization-i-hate-that-even-more-104340
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https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/diversity/2020/05/28/the-reality-of-diversification-without-beginning-the-process-of-decolonisation/#:~:text=Without%20decolonising%20work%2C%20diversification%20exists,the%20workplace%20and%20the%20classroom
https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/diversity/2020/05/28/the-reality-of-diversification-without-beginning-the-process-of-decolonisation/#:~:text=Without%20decolonising%20work%2C%20diversification%20exists,the%20workplace%20and%20the%20classroom
https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/diversity/2020/05/28/the-reality-of-diversification-without-beginning-the-process-of-decolonisation/#:~:text=Without%20decolonising%20work%2C%20diversification%20exists,the%20workplace%20and%20the%20classroom
https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/diversity/2020/05/28/the-reality-of-diversification-without-beginning-the-process-of-decolonisation/#:~:text=Without%20decolonising%20work%2C%20diversification%20exists,the%20workplace%20and%20the%20classroom
https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/diversity/2020/05/28/the-reality-of-diversification-without-beginning-the-process-of-decolonisation/#:~:text=Without%20decolonising%20work%2C%20diversification%20exists,the%20workplace%20and%20the%20classroom
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