Re: Covering visa fees as part of flights+accommodation expenses for events
On 27.06.22 17:34, Jonathan Carter wrote:
This had mixed results, for one, people who had their visa's covered
in the past may have been surprised to learn that this time round they
suddenly had to pay $100-200 that they thought would have been covered.
Furthermore, visa requirements tend to affect people from less
privileged countries the most. If we're serious about diversity, I
think that we should include covering the visa fee if we offer
travel+accommodation by default, and that this should be the default
for DebConf going forward, and ideally for all Debian events.
A conference is about rendering us all mostly equal - some location,
same food, same discussions. Diversity would also include those who
cannot travel, or who cannot travel alone. I am fine with paying all
travel-associated costs, but not because of diversity, please. Just call
if "fairness" or "equal opportunity" or whatever.
I realise I have some bias here, I myself come from a country where I
need a visa nearly everywhere I want to travel to, but I do think that
including visa fees by default will help making Debian easier to
contribute to for people who come from such countries, and ultimately
have a small role in helping us expand to more areas and improve our
diversity.
You mean global coverage.
I agree that it would help the project to have direct contacts to many
regions in the world.
Best,
Steffen
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