Purpose
To ensure that everyone participating in an event benefits not only from its content, but also from the care relationships created throughout the experience; making events more inclusive, accessible, and care-centered.
What need does it address?
- Helping participants feel safe, welcomed, and included
- Responding to care needs that often remain invisible during events
- Supporting first-time participants in joining the community
- Strengthening accessibility and inclusion
- Preventing care responsibilities from being left solely to participants
- Making care visible as a collective responsibility
How can it be practiced?
1. Ask about needs before the event.
In registration forms or invitations, create opportunities for participants to share care and accessibility needs.
For example:
- Do you have any accessibility requirements?
- Do you need interpretation or sign language support?
- Do you have any childcare-related needs?
- Is there anything else that would make it easier for you to participate?
Not every need can always be accommodated, but making needs visible in advance allows for more thoughtful planning.
2. Designate a Care Steward.
Before the event, identify a person or small team responsible for supporting care and accessibility needs.
At the beginning of the event, participants can be informed about:
- Where the quiet space is located
- Whether there is a baby care room
- Where accessible restrooms are located
- Who to contact if support is needed
- Where first-aid supplies can be found
The Care Steward serves as a visible point of contact for care and accessibility needs.
3. Welcome first-time participants.
You can create a voluntary event buddy system for people attending for the first time.
Participants may choose to sit together, meet one another, or ask questions throughout the event.
4. Make small care needs visible.
Provide shared care supplies that participants can access if needed.
For example:
- Pads and tampons
- Earplugs
- Wet wipes
- Charging cables or power banks
- Drinking water
- Sunscreen
- A first-aid kit
These resources are important not only for meeting practical needs, but also for normalizing the fact that everyone has needs and that those needs are legitimate.
5. Create space for rest.
Provide a quiet area where participants can spend time alone or take a break when needed.
Remind participants that stepping away, taking a pause, or leaving early is completely acceptable.
6. See facilitators as part of the culture of care.
Facilitators and speakers shape not only the content of an event but also its atmosphere.
They can contribute to a culture of care by:
- Sharing speaking time equitably
- Creating space for quieter participants
- Acknowledging diverse experiences and needs
- Supporting an environment where participants feel safe and respected
A culture of care is shaped not only by designated care teams, but also by the way an event is facilitated.
7. Make the labor that enables the event visible.
Events are often made possible through many forms of labor that remain unseen.
At the opening or closing of the event, you can acknowledge the contributions of:
- Cleaning staff
- Catering workers
- Volunteers
- Interpreters
- Technical teams
- People providing childcare or elder care
- Venue staff
This helps remind participants that care is not simply a service provided during an event, but part of the collective labor that makes the event possible.
8. Consider the journey home as part of care.
At the end of the event, participants can ask one another:
- “Is anyone heading in the same direction?”
- “Would you like to travel back together?”
Especially after evening events, simple arrangements for safe travel can strengthen collective care.
9. Reflect on the care experience after the event.
Ask participants not only about the content of the event, but also about how safe, included, and supported they felt throughout the experience.
For example:
- Did you feel comfortable during the event?
- Were you able to ask for support when needed?
- What helped you feel most supported?
- What would you recommend for future events?
These reflections can help future events become more care-centered and inclusive.
Things to consider
- The goal is not to provide care as a service, but to facilitate relationships of care.
- Participants should never feel obligated to accept support.
- Needs should be made visible, but no one should be required to explain or justify them.
- Accessibility and inclusion should be considered from the planning stage onward.
- Responsibility for care should be shared across the organizing team whenever possible.
- The presence of a Care Steward does not mean that care becomes solely that person’s responsibility. The steward serves as a point of contact that helps make care and accessibility needs visible. Noticing one another’s needs, making it easier to ask for support, and offering support are shared responsibilities of participants, facilitators, and organizers alike.
- Every event has different care needs. This ritual should be understood not as a checklist, but as an invitation that can be adapted to different contexts.
The Ihtimam Perspective
Ihtimam Rituals offer practical ways to strengthen care relationships in everyday life. However, lasting solutions to the invisibilization of care require changes not only in daily practices, but also in organizations, policies, and systems.
Events are often planned primarily around content and logistics, while participants’ care needs remain invisible. Yet an event can only be truly inclusive when people feel safe, seen, welcomed, and supported throughout their participation.
For more structural approaches, explore the Care Policy Recommendations Tool:
Shared by
This ritual was shared by Ihtimam’s Co-Nurturers.
Ihtimam Rituals is a living collection of care practices developed by individuals, communities, and organizations in their everyday lives. You can contribute to this collective archive by sharing a ritual that strengthens care relationships in your own daily life.