BENGALURU: Some studies claim it takes all of 21 days to form a new habit. A city-based venture decided to use this nugget of information to help people become better allies of the LGBTQ+ community. Pride Circle, a diversity and inclusion consultancy, recently launched the #21DaysAllyChallenge for Pride Month, which celebrates the community. The idea is simple: Participants are given 21 “micro tasks” that could take them anywhere between five minutes to 50 minutes.
“The tasks are small enough that people can pace them over 21 days or attempt a couple of them together,” says Srini Ramaswamy, co-founder of Pride Circle. Having started on June 1, the initiative has so far called for tasks like read a coming out story of an LGBTQ+ individual, introspect why you want to be an ally, learn about LGBTQ+ laws in your country, watch a queer film, follow community individuals on social media and so on.
Currently, the initiative, which was launched on a global scale, has over 5,000 participants, including individuals, companies like NASA, Infosys, IBM, Intel, etc, and schools and educational institutes like Indian Institute of Management (Ranchi) and Tagore International School (Vasant Vihar). Participants from countries like Sweden, the Netherlands, Serbia, USA, UK, Thailand, South Africa, Singapore, Japan, China and Australia are also taking part.
Since one of the objectives is to take conscious steps to recognise and neutralise biases and stereotypes about LGBTQ+ community, each task also goes up with a list of resources for people to check out. “Each completed task can fetch you points and then there are bonus tasks and referrals for extra points,” says Ramaswamy, adding that new tasks are added every week day, at 12 pm IST.
A separate leaderboard for individuals and companies has also been created. Registrations are still open for the challenge, which concludes on July 1, with winners being announced on July 15. “Our top 10 individual winners will get gift vouchers from our reward partners,” says Ramaswamy, adding that companies will get a certificate of appreciation and a badge.