Holding space for diversity
Embodying our values in our groups and organisations can involve facing deep challenges in relation to anti-oppression practices and honouring diversity. People facilitating group processes and holding spaces for others need additional support to explore and understand the dynamics involved, and to learn practices and approaches that can help our groups to meet these challenges in ways that are creative and empowering.
In our work with groups, many of us are familiar with the challenges this course seeks to address. What does it really mean to honour diversity? How do we build the understanding we need to integrate anti-oppression practices effectively? And how do we do this in a way that genuinely increases awareness, justice, care and mutual understanding?
This is a training and inquiry for experienced trainers and facilitators. The in-depth 8 day course will provide a space to explore, learn, and deepen awareness and understanding of how to integrate equality, diversity and inclusion into learning and development, including content delivery, the learning and development process at every stage, within the group dynamics and learning climate, and specific facilitation and training approaches designed to support the needs of participants (individually and collectively).
As educators, trainers and facilitators there are a myriad of opportunities to broaden and deepen the awareness, knowledge and understanding of equality diversity and inclusion of the people on our courses and workshops, whether it’s a course with a specific focus on equality diversity and inclusion related topic, or as a thread we can weave into any course or workshop that seeks to build a better world for all. Whatever the topic, a learning and development setting provides the ideal opportunity for strengthening and increasing confidence and capability in promoting equality, enhancing diversity and building inclusive practices and cultures.
An integral Framework for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Development
No single development model, approach or strategy is able to respond alone to support the learning of people in an increasingly diverse world, and the challenges arising from ever increasing inequality and asymmetrical power dynamics. In response to cultural complexity we need to go beyond the habit of turning to simplistic solutions and building a holistic repertoire of flexible approaches that encompass the range of developmental opportunities we can build into any training programme. The integral framework that underpins this programme is one such attempt to guide our work as educators, trainers and facilitators.
As educators, trainers and facilitators there are at least 5 ways we can support participant development in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I):
ED&I work is also some of the most demanding in terms of emotional energy and facilitator skills, and the course will explore ways to resource and look after ourselves before, during and after engaging in this work.
Learning objectives and outcomes: By the end of the course participants will:
Participants should be experienced facilitators or trainers, with previous experience of anti-oppression or equality, diversity and inclusion work.
In the solidarity economy:
(See details of our approach to radical economics here)
Contact us
to apply
Location:
Byron has a background in health and social care, community adult education, counselling and leadership development; and has spent the past 25 years supporting individuals, teams, communities and organisations build inclusive practices, systems and cultures. During that time he has supported the equality, diversity and inclusion work in many small, medium and large organisations; engaging with front-in workers and senior leaders and teams. His passion is supporting individuals, teams and organisations weave together different sources of knowledge, wisdom and practice to support collaborative learning, address sensitive issues and building inclusive practices and cultures. His current work involves supporting people involved in equality, diversity and inclusion develop a compassionate approach in their work, including self-care, engaging with difficulties, and compassionate action.
Location:
Linzy Na Nakorn is a movement director, politicised somatics practitioner, community organiser and facilitator. For the past decade she has been facilitating movement, body work and creating theatre, dance and participatory performance that advocates for and organises with communities in pursuit of housing, disability and racial justice. Her movement practice focuses on trauma-informed approaches to building resilience, capacity and joy via way of the body for personal, interpersonal and community sustainability. Linzy was a Co-Director of The Big Ride for Palestine in partnership with The Gaza Sunbirds, Native Woman Ride and Middle East Children’s Alliance; using cycling as a tool for mobilising active solidarity and in support of campaigning for the rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people. Linzy is part of a UK network of activists and artists advocating for Radical Care – supporting organisations, researchers and institutions to work towards system change in societal approaches to labour, leadership and access.
Location:
Jeroen (he/him pronouns) has been involved in grassroots social movements for more than two decades now, starting back when he was fifteen. Throughout the years the fights for “climate justice” and “migrant justice” have been consistently on top of the list of struggles that make his heart beat faster. A key transformative moment for Jeroen was reading Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire’s revolutionary pedagogy gave him a language to support the creation of emancipatory learning environments, rooted in a desire for collective liberation. Jeroen has also been exploring in depth Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and Joanna Macy’s The Work That Reconnects among other methodologies to build his trainer’s toolkit. Inspired by the liberatory possibilities of these traditions, he started an organization with a friend, LABO vzw, based in Belgium, where he has worked as a trainer and campaigner between 2013 and 2023.
Location:
Ella brings more than 10 years’ external experience working with not for profit and community based organisations across diverse themes including: advocacy for migrant communities; local community engagement in national policy making; and structural relationships between poverty and disenfranchisement, and education and poverty. Immersed in critical theory in her early 20s she brings a holistic and questioning approach, and is passionate about systemic solutions that centre relationship and interconnection between ecology and society. A long standing member of the collective, Ella has been part of the core team since the inception of the Ulex Project. Her work bridges facilitation, developing project partnerships, governance, strategy, operations, and project and programme evaluation. She has developed and overseen more than 70 partnerships with a range of different actors across European social movements.
Location:
Alex has been facilitating courses geared towards social and personal transformation for the past 6 years. They have spent the last 10 years as a core member of the collective running the Ulex Project and has a deep experience of the integral approach we have developed. Their area of training expertise is sustainable activism and skills for developing ‘deeper resources’ for action. Their commitment to social justice and history of political activism have involved them in direct action and affinity group work focused on climate justice, anti-capitalism, queer politics and gender identity. A strong focus on the somatic dimension and embodied practice (informed by their work as a dance artist and yoga teacher) underpins both their approach.
Location:
Nina (they/she) is a participatory artist, community organiser and political theatre maker. Theatre of the Oppressed has been a core part of their practice since they trained in India with Jana Sankriti in 2018. They are an artistic director of queer led theatre company, You Should see the Other Guy, who work on and off stage to tackle social injustice and make raucous musical verbatim plays. Nina has designed and delivered multiple TO training programmes in activist, community and academic settings, often combining TO with song making to collaboratively explore themes around power and identity. Their current fascination is thinking about TO as a practical manifestation of queer theory and asking: Is Theatre of the Oppressed queer?
Location:
Marianne is a Holistic Security Trainer and Coach, part of the Holistic Protection Collective. She accompanies activists, human rights defenders and journalists globally. Being an activist herself, she is also a trainer for direct action and civil disobedience, and having a background as a mediator, she trains other activists how to facilitate dealing with conflicts in grassroots groups and diverse teams.
Tools for effective and sustainable activism
–
new stories: different worlds
–
Knowledge, skills and perspectives to challenge oppression and create spaces of solidarity.
–
Tools for effective and sustainable activism
–
Navigating the complex terrain of migrant and migrant-solidarity organising
–
an introduction to a holistic and transformative approach to activist training and facilitation
–
Go to the people, learn from them. Live with them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have – Lao Tzu
–
Building facilitation capacity through participatory practices.
–
a space to think critically, to ask challenging and transformative questions, and find deeper inspiration and understanding to empower social change.
–
building and strengthening regenerative praxis for BIPOC organisers.
–
Ulex: Latin (argelaga Catalan, gorse English) noun:
1. A thorny-evergreen flowering shrub, with a high capacity for regeneration and resilience. Its seedpods open in contact with fire and it reshoots from charred stumps. A successionary plant that grows well under challenging conditions. It improves soil fertility through nitrogen fixing, preparing the way for renewed biodiversity.
2. A traditional choice for igniting fires. Burns hot and bright.
3. A networked project adding nutrition and fertility to European social movements through training and capacity building. It kindles the realisation of social justice, ecological intelligence, and cognitive vitality.
