A Resource Guide to Help in the Fight Against Racism

RSL.com

Players from Real Salt Lake, Utah Royals FC and Real Monarchs SLC have joined forces to announce their support for the Cultural Competency Support Program with the Salt Lake City School District. On Thursday, the RSL Foundation will match the first $5,000 donated to the program.

Through this initiative, the Educational Equity and Student Support Department will provide training for administrators, teachers and school resource officers in the areas of cultural competency and creating cultures of dignity. This effort strives to ensure that the rich diversity that students bring to school is welcomed, honored, and respected with a commitment to creating opportunities for all students to access meaningful educational services.

Donate by clicking the link and selecting Cultural Competency Support Program here.

“What’s important to us as a foundation is that this is a teaching opportunity for our students, staff and administrators to learn from one another and be supportive of one another. It’s important that we all work together to mindful and respectful of each other’s unique backgrounds,” said James Yapias, Director of the Salt Lake Education Foundation. “We can all work together in support of our students. We value every student who walks through our doors. We have such a diverse population and all our teachers and administrators go through the training and it helps create an inclusive environment for children to learn.”

The Salt Lake City School District consists of 27 elementary schools, five middles schools, five high schools and three charter schools. Of the 23,410 students in the district, over 50 different languages are spoken and considered their native language. With that abundance of diversity, education programs that are inclusive are crucial. The Cultural Competency Support Program ensures that each of those students has access to the same educational resources to thrive in school.

“The Equity and Access Department will be facilitating a conversation with school administrators regarding equity and creating a culture of dignity in schools. We will be using the book, Belonging through a culture of dignity: The keys to successful equity implementation (Cobb & Krownapple, 2019) to deepen our understanding of dignity as innate and unconditional,” said Executive Director of Educational Equity and Student Support for the Salt Lake City School District Sandra Buendia. “The authors propose that schools and school districts create learning environments where a culture of dignity exists, where everyone belongs, and everyone is respected.”

The RSL organization has long stood on and acted upon the principle of unifying our community through soccer, while promoting inclusion, diversity and acceptance. We will not tolerate racism nor discrimination in any form. We have witnessed and learned from instances of racism within our own stadium and are committed to continue to be leaders and agents of change in eradicating racism everywhere. As an organization, as a club and as a family, we demand better. We stand – our players, our coaches and our staff – in unity with all of those across the country who seek to come together to help bring about change to overcome these disgraceful attitudes and horrific actions, and to begin to heal our community in Utah and throughout our country. We stand with you.

Listen. Learn. Love.

At Real Salt Lake, we stand firmly with all communities of color and support all those fighting against racism, bigotry, violence and social inequality.

As leaders in our community, RSL, Utah Royals FC and Real Monarchs have participated in Blackout Tuesday on social media to show our support of the Black Lives Matter movement in our community and around the world. We stand with those affected by the injustices such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery among the many others.