a deeper reflection space to empower transformative social movements
This retreat aims to support organisers and activists holding ‘leadership’ positions within their groups and movements to grow leaderful skills and resilience.
The retreat is designed to create space for reflection, experience exchange and collective exploration of challenges that come with stepping into leadership roles within social movements, and to facilitate relationship building and peer-to-peer support.
How do we relate to leadership in social movements? What views and preconceptions do we have about leadership? How do these influence the way we enter and hold positions of responsibility and influence? How can we hold positions of responsibility and influence and still be aligned with the deeper values we want to see in the world? What qualities, behaviours and practices can support us in navigating power and rank in our groups? How can we empower ourselves and each other to use power and rank skillfully rather than shy away from exerting influence for the good of the whole? How does socialisation and systemic conditioning influence the way we relate to and hold positions of power? What can we do about it? How do we remain joyful, resilient and energised by the bigger purpose when under pressure of responsibility?
The Leadership Retreat will aim to open up these and other questions related to leadership, navigating power and influence. We will create a space for inquiry, exploration of challenges and sharing of practices. We will aim to break the cycle of action by opening space for reflection, pause and creating conditions for a deeper understanding of our own behaviours and patterns and those of our groups and movements.
What are the aims of the course?
So, the workshop will help participants to:
Who is it aimed at?
Anyone involved in socially engaged action on environmental, political and social justice issues who holds leadership positions. We embrace a broad definition of activism, including: Resistance – action preventing further damage to ecosystems and social justice; Renewal – action focused on developing and creating alternatives for healthier societies and communities; and Building Resilience – action supporting increased resilience in communities to weather the uncertain times ahead.
The main spoken language on the course will be English.
In the solidarity economy:
(See details of our approach to radical economics here)
Contact us
to apply
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.
Tools for effective and sustainable activism
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new stories: different worlds
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Knowledge, skills and perspectives to challenge oppression and create spaces of solidarity.
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Tools for effective and sustainable activism
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Navigating the complex terrain of migrant and migrant-solidarity organising
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an introduction to a holistic and transformative approach to activist training and facilitation
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Go to the people, learn from them. Live with them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have – Lao Tzu
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Building facilitation capacity through participatory practices.
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a space to think critically, to ask challenging and transformative questions, and find deeper inspiration and understanding to empower social change.
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building and strengthening regenerative praxis for BIPOC organisers.
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Ulex: del latín, (tojo en castellano, argelaga en catalán) nombre.
1. Arbusto espinoso de hoja perenne y floración, con gran capacidad de regeneración y resistencia. Sus púas se abren al entrar en contacto con el fuego y vuelve a brotar de los tocones carbonizados. Planta sucesional que crece bien en condiciones difíciles. Mejora la fertilidad del suelo mediante la fijación de nitrógeno, preparando el terreno para una renovada biodiversidad.
2. Una opción tradicional para encender fuegos. Arde con intensidad y brillo.
3. Un proyecto en red que aporta nutrición y fertilidad a los movimientos sociales europeos a través de la formación
