UK BANK HOLIDAYS 2022 1 January New Year’s Day 3 January New Year’s Day Bank Holiday (substitute day) 15 April Good Friday 17 April Easter Sunday 18 April Easter Monday 2 May May Day Bank Holiday 2 June Spring Bank Holiday 3 June Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday 29 August Summer Bank Holiday 25 December Christmas Day 26 December Boxing Day 27 December Christmas Day Bank Holiday (substitute day) For a full description of the meaning of these Bank Holiday’s please see the appropriate date 1 Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Calendar 2022 JANUARY 2022 01 January 2022 New Year's Day New Year is one of the most widely celebrated holidays in the world. In many parts of the globe New Year festivities begin the day before on New Year's Eve, December 31. People host and attend New Year parties at home or celebrate in restaurants, bars, or on the street, counting down to the end of the year and wishing each other a happy new year. 04 January 2022 World Braille Day World Braille Day is an international day celebrating awareness of the importance of braille as a means of communication in the full realisation of the human rights for blind and visually impaired people. 06 January 2022 Epiphany (Christian) Epiphany is a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ. In Western Christianity, the feast commemorates principally the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child, and thus Jesus' physical manifestation to the Gentiles. It is also known as the twelfth day of Christmas. 07 January 2022 Christmas Day (Orthodox Day) Many Orthodox Christians annually celebrate Christmas Day on or near January 7 to remember Jesus Christ's birth, described in the Christian Bible. This date works to the Julian calendar that pre-dates the more commonly observed Gregorian calendar. 14 January 2022 Orthodox New Year’s Day The Old New Year or the Orthodox New Year is an informal traditional holiday, celebrated as the start of the New Year by the Julian calendar. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the Old New Year falls on January 14 in the Gregorian calendar. 2 16 January 2022 World Religion Day The aim of World Religion Day, held on the third Sunday in January every year, is to promote inter-faith understanding and harmony. Through a variety of events held around the globe, followers of every religion are encouraged to acknowledge the similarities that different faiths have. 17 January 2022 15th Shevat (Judaism) Tu B’Shvat is a Jewish holiday occurring on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat. It is also called Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot, literally 'New Year of the Trees'. In contemporary Israel, the day is celebrated as an ecological awareness day, and trees are planted in celebration. International Martin Luther King Day Martin Luther King was one of the principal leaders of the United States civil rights movement. His birth is marked by Martin Luther King Day, an American federal holiday established by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 15 years after the clergyman's assassination. Martin Luther King was born on 15 January 1929, with Martin Luther King Day observed each year on the third Monday in January. It is one of only four national holidays in America to commemorate a person. Initial resistance towards the holiday meant it was not officially observed in all 50 states until 2000. 27 January 2022 Holocaust Memorial Day This day honours the memory of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust and the survivors that bore witness to the horrors to which the Jewish people were subjected. This day focuses on promoting education, remembrance, and research to ensure that genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism and anti-Semitism become part of our past but not our future. 3 FEBRUARY 2022 01 February 2022 Chinese New Year Chinese New Year is the Chinese festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional Chinese calendar. The festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival in China as the spring season in the lunisolar calendar traditionally starts with lichun, the first of the twenty-four solar terms which the festival celebrates around the time of the Lunar New Year. Marking the end of winter and the beginning of the spring season, observances traditionally take place from New Year’s Eve, the evening preceding the first day of the year to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day of Chinese New Year begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February. In 2022, the first day of the Chinese New Year will be on Friday, 1 February, which is the Year of the Tiger. LGBT+ History Month begins History Month is an annual month-long observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. It was founded in 1994 by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson. LGBT History Month provides role models, builds community, and represents a civil rights statement about the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community. As of 2020, LGBT History Month is a month-long celebration that is specific to Hungary, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Greenland, and the city of Berlin. 04 February 2022 World Cancer Day World Cancer Day is observed worldwide on February 4. The aim is to inform and encourage people on its prevention, early detection, and treatment. This initiative was taken by the Union for International Cancer Control to campaign and advocate for the targets of the World Cancer Declaration, penned in 2008. 05 February 2022 Vasant Panchami (Hindu) Vasant Panchami is the Hindu festival that welcomes spring. It falls in the Hindu lunar month of Magh (January/February). It’s also the time to pay tribute to Saraswati, the Goddess of Wisdom. She is usually portrayed with four hands to represent four aspects of the human intellect. She sits on a lotus to symbolise her wisdom and is clothed in white to symbolise purity. 06 February 2022 International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations- sponsored annual awareness day that takes place on February 6 as part of the UN's efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003. 4 07 February 2022 Time to Talk about Mental Health Day Time to Talk Day aim is to get people to choose to talk about mental health and by doing so help change lives. It is a chance for all of us to open-up to mental health – to talk, to listen, and to change lives. 15 February 2022 Nirvana Day (Buddhist) Nirvana Day (Parinirvana) is the day when Buddhists from the Mahayana tradition remember the death and enlightenment of the Buddha at the age of 80. It is also known as Parinirvana Day and is celebrated by some Buddhists on the 15th of February. Nirvana Day is celebrated by some Mahayana Buddhist traditions on 8 February. 25 February 2022 International Stand Up to Bullying Day International STAND UP to Bullying Day is a special semi-annual event in which participants sign and wear a pink "pledge shirt" to take a visible, public stance against bullying. The event takes place in schools, workplaces, and organisations in 25 countries around the globe on the third Friday of November to coincide with Anti-Bullying Week, and then again on the last Friday of February. 28 February 2022 Lailat-al-Miraj (Islam) This is a Muslim festival that commemorates the Prophet Muhammad’s journey from Mecca to the ‘Farthest Mosque’ in Jerusalem when he ascended to heaven, was purified and given the instruction for Muslims to pray five times daily. It is observed as one of the most important events in the history of Islam and many Muslims attend special prayer services. 5 MARCH 2022 01 March 2022 Shrove Tuesday (Christian) Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. It is also known as Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day. Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the ritual of shriving, i.e., the process of confessing and repenting of sins, fasting and abstaining from luxuries during Lent. Lent is the period of 40 days which comes before Easter in the Christian calendar. St David's Day Saint David’s Day is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales. Although it is not a national holiday it’s celebrated every year with traditional festivities across Welsh towns. Many wear daffodils and leeks, eat traditional food such as cawl and Welsh rarebit and there are St David’s Day parades across the country. Self Injury Awareness Day Self Injury Awareness Day is held annually on 1 March. Its purpose is to remove the stigma attached to self-injury and to encourage parents, family members, educators and healthcare professionals to recognise the signs of self-harm. 02 March 2022 Ash Wednesday/ Lent Begins (Christian) Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent for Western Christian churches and is a day of penitence. In some traditions, services are held on Ash Wednesday when worshippers are marked on the forehead with a cross of ashes as a sign of penitence and mortality. 08 March 2022 International Women's Day International Women's Day is celebrated on the 8th of March every year around the world. It is a focal point in the movement for women's rights. After the Socialist Party of America organised a Women's Day in New York City on February 28, 1909 and the proposal at the 1910 International Socialist Woman's Conference was that "a special Women's Day" be organized annually.