October Holiday Spotlight

October is Global Diversity Awareness Month. This month was created to celebrate and increase awareness around diversities of all kinds including cultures and ethnicities, genders, abilities, religions, and more. This month focuses on the positive impact diversity has on society. Although it is hard to pinpoint the exact origins of this month, it is believed to have slowly evolved post World War II as the world tried to come back together. Organizations and companies acknowledge the month with special programming and events that bring the importance of diversity within their institution to the forefront.  

This Month

• October 1: Native American Women’s Equal Pay Day
• October 4: St. Francis Day
• October 7-15: Navaratri
• October 10: World Mental Health Day
• October 11: National Coming Out Day (U.S.)
• October 11: National Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• October 18-19 (sundown to sundown): Eid Milad un-Nabi/Mawlid Al-Nabi
• October 20: International Pronouns Day
• October 29: Latinx Women’s Equal Pay Day
• October 31: All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween)

Resources

• Global Diversity Awareness Month: Programming Guide
• U.S. Census Bureau: People Living With Disabilities
• GLSEN’s LGBTQ History Month Resources
• Equal Pay Today
• Spiritual Practices of St. Francis Day
• Navaratri 2021 Celebration
• World Health Organization: World Mental Health Day
• GLESN’s Coming Out, a guide for young people
• Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• Birthday of the Prophet: Mawlid al-Nabi
• Gender Neutral Pronoun Chart
• Video from the 2020 Latina Equal Pay Day event
• History.com: Halloween Origins, Meaning & Traditions

Spotlight: World Mental Health Day

World Mental Health Day (October 10) was first celebrated in 1993 as a way to increase public awareness about the importance of mental health, mental health services, and mental health workers worldwide.

This year's 2021 World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) campaign’s theme is “Mental Health in an Unequal World.” According to the WFMH, this theme is meant to “highlight that access to mental health services remains unequal, with between 75% to 95% of people with mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries unable to access mental health services at all, and access in high income countries is not much better.”

Full details on each holiday can be found here. 

Written by Taylor Kanemori, Director of Equity & Inclusion