Dr. Mirkka Sarparanta and members of the Tracers in Molecular Imaging Group took on the task to represent the Department of Chemistry with a short drama highlighting a potential situation in everyday duties where the equality of the people involved is jeopardized. The dramas were part of the program at the Faculty of Science Equality Festival on December 12, 2017. The event was created by Professor Hanna Vehkamäki of the Department of Physics around the recently published results of the Equality and well-being survey of the faculty.
As we are a multicultural team, exploring issues related to the group working language and training practices was the first thing to come to our mind, since nearly all of us have witnessed everyday situations where problems arise from for example instructions being posted only in Finnish. As a group, we have worked diligently towards creating a safe working environment free of language limitations for everyone at our lab while still adhering to the reporting requirements in Finnish of the national regulatory authorities and legislation. The short film 'Radiation Safety First' with English subtitles can be found on Unitube.
Switching out from our scientist "roles" to acting and film production for a day was certainly refreshing and a fantastic team building exercise as there were a lot of laughs, bloopers and ample 'making of' photos taken to document the process!
We are extremely happy to have been part of the Equality Festival and advancing equality at the Faculty of Science!