The Regional Water Providers Consortium is committed to equity both internally through our work and culture and externally through our outreach and programming.
We believe that embedding equity into our planning, programming, and outreach will enhance our ability to serve our members and their customers. We recognize the implicit bias, historical discrimination, barriers to access, and disproportionate adversity affecting communities of color and other historically underserved communities in accessing safe, reliable drinking water. Because of this, we are committed to reevaluating our planning, programming, and outreach to ensure equitable outcomes as we implement our programs.
Our commitment as staff is to learn and hold ourselves accountable. We will listen to our members and the communities they serve so we can make informed, collaborative decisions on how to address the unique needs of the region regarding drinking water. We will seek input from diverse populations including Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color; immigrant and refugee communities; individuals with limited English proficiency; people with disabilities; and low-income communities.
Our Equity Commitment
The Regional Water Providers Consortium is dedicated to incorporating equity in our planning, budgeting, programming, outreach, and workplace culture. We are able to better serve our water provider members’ customers when we lead with equity, and we are committed to engaging with historically underserved and under-resourced populations in the greater Portland, Oregon metropolitan region.
Accountability to our members and the communities they serve
Equity begins with transparency, listening, and respect. The Regional Water Providers Consortium is committed to creating programs and developing relationships that fully represent many different cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints. We take pride in our leadership role in the planning, management, stewardship, and resiliency of drinking water in the greater Portland, Oregon metropolitan region. We embrace our differences, value uniqueness, respect diverse perspectives, and actively listen to all voices.
As a member-driven organization, we strive to create programming that is both useful to and representative of our member entities. The way we embed equity into our planning, programming, and outreach is approved by vote from the Consortium Board and incorporated into our workings committees’ work plans each year. Consortium staff is committed to using an equity lens in support of our mission and values while working for and alongside our member entities.