Events
Healing Historical Harms Training OCT. 6-9
*
Stephen Olford Center, Memphis, TN*
3.5-Day Training for Leaders and Organizers
October 6-9, 2010; Wednesday, 3:00pm – Saturday 4:30pm
Memphis, TN
Audience
This training is for community leaders and organizers who live in communities and/or work in organizations and churches where there is a desire to address on-going divisions, inequality and tensions related to historical events.
Program Description
The primary purpose of this training is for participants to learn both theoretical frameworks and some of the skills required to explore historical harms and work towards a positive future at the personal, organizational and community levels. The workshop will create opportunities for participants to use the theoretical frameworks to examine their current work and context as well as identify others in their community working towards a similar end. We will work on finding complementary roles among different initiatives and design new efforts that would fill the gaps (if any).
CONTENT: We will present the Coming to the Table (CTTT) framework which includes the stages of facing history, making connections, healing wounds and taking action. We will also look at the STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) trauma and trauma healing model especially as it relates to historical trauma. We will support these frameworks by providing some skills building training including:
• analyzing current social political arrangements to discover the legacy and aftermath of harmful historical events;
• models of storytelling for building connection, healing historical hurts and organizing for action;
• facilitating dialogue; and
• organizing for change.
Our primary case study will be looking at the legacies and aftermaths of the US institution of slavery. However, we will also examine other historical harms in the US and world that are continuing to impact communities.
Each participant will have the opportunity to identify the unique strategies that might work best in his or her community context. We strongly recommend that more than one person from each institution or community attend in order to support one another in planning for activities after the training.
Training Objectives
During the training, participants will:
• Learn the CTTT Approach – The approach provides an overview of the “stages” of History, Healing, Connecting, and Action, all of which are needed to address historical harms and create stronger communities, however, do not need to be followed in a prescribed order. Participants will learn to apply this approach in their contexts.
• Explore Historical Trauma – Trauma can affect the mind, body, spirit and societal relationships and arrangements. People who are victims, offenders, and bystanders of overwhelming events and on-going practices can each experience the effects of unhealed trauma. Understanding the nature of trauma, how it gets passed down between generations and how it can still affect us in visible and invisible ways are key aspects of addressing historical harms. Participants will learn about trauma and consider ways it is affecting their communities and organizations and ways in which the reactions to historical trauma are built into systems or define modern relationships.
• Identify Legacies and Aftermaths – Ways of being and organizing society are often passed down from generation to generation. They are transmitted through legacies which include attitudes and beliefs and through aftermaths, which include structures and systems. It’s important to be able to identify the manifestations of historically traumatic events – both beliefs and structures -that get passed down in order to identify the kind of action that is needed to change them. We will provide opportunities for participants to analyze legacies and aftermaths in their own contexts.
• Practice storytelling – We all have stories. Sometimes we tell them and sometimes we keep them hidden. Stories can be told and suppressed in ways that continued to divide and harm (the speaker, those listening and, in the case of untold stories, those who could benefit from hearing.) There are also ways to tell stories that work towards healing, mutual understanding, a vision for the future and motivating action. Participant will learn and practice elements of storytelling with others.
• Learn models of dialogue – Talking about certain historical and current events can encourage disagreements, division, and even hatred if there’s not a way to constructively share stories with those on the “other side” of the stories. A structure must be created to support people from different sides of history in sharing their stories, facts and beliefs. Without being able to connect at a human level, it is difficult to work together to identify harms and work towards making things right. Learning dialogue facilitation skills and ways to structure conversations that encourage people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives to share experiences and their impacts helps build trust and collaboration. We will present several dialogue processes.
• Explore strategies to organize for change –Learning organizing practices that lead to sustainable change is key in changing beliefs and structures so they do not continue to harm but instead create positive legacies. Taking action to make changes can also help individuals and communities in their process of healing from harmful legacies. We will identify tools for analysis and ways to begin a change process.
Coming to the Table and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding:
Coming to the Table is housed at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. It began as a racial reconciliation initiative for descendants of people who were enslaved and slaveholders, often from the same family and/or plantation system. The program has expanded to include supporting individuals, communities and institutions face the on-going legacies of enslavement as well as other historical harms. The Center for Justice & Peacebuilding (CJP) is located at Eastern Mennonite University. It is comprised of the Graduate Program in Conflict Transformation, and the Practice and Training Institute which develops practice and training opportunities. CJP has trained thousands of peacebuilding practitioners around the US and the World.
The Trainers:
Amy Potter Czajkowski is the Program Director of Coming to the Table. Her areas of interests are reconciliation, historical trauma, trauma healing, and program development. Amy is an experienced mediator, facilitator and trainer with more than 10 years of experience developing peacebuilding and trauma healing programs. She is a founding team member of Fambul Tok, Sierra Leone and on the board of Fambul Tok International, an organization that supports community reconciliation in post-war contexts. She holds a BA from Principia College and an MA in conflict transformation from Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.
David Anderson Hooker is the Director of Training for Coming to the Table and Associate Professor at Eastern Mennonite University. He is a mediator, community organizer and peace builder with over 25 years experience, specializing in managing complex, multi-party, and public policy conflicts. He has worked in Bosnia, Croatia, Cuba, Myanmar, Nigeria, Somaliland, Sudan and Zimbabwe. He is the former Vice President for Community Building for the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Atlanta Civic Site. In that role, he worked with historically disenfranchised communities in the Atlanta (GA) inner city. He is a graduate of Emory University’s School of Law (JD), the Candler School of Theology (MDiv), the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (MPH and MPA), Washington University in St. Louis (MA Minority Mental Health) and Morehouse College (BS).
Location: The training will be held at The Stephen Olford Center
4000 Riverdale Rd., Memphis, TN 38115, www.uu.edu/centers/olford/retreatcenter/
Costs
Training: Training fee, materials and lunch: $250
Lodging (3 nights): Single room, breakfast and dinner: $270
Double room, breakfast and dinner: $180
Transportation: The Stephen Olford Center provides a shuttle service from their campus to the Memphis airport at a cost of $10 each way.
Registration: Register HERE
For more information about the training contact us at (877) 540-2888 or cttt@emu.edu.
An additional, optional training will be offered before the Healing Historical Harms
by Turning Point Partners, Memphis in
MINDFUL COMMUNICATION
August 6, 9:00am – 2:30pm
This training develops a consciousness and offers practical skills that promote clear communication, deep understand, and vital compassion with oneself and between people. It provides effective strategies for meeting needs, and progress towards reaching personal or group goals and promotes a mindfulness that decreases the likelihood of conflict, defensiveness, depression and anger. It is more than a communication technique for at the heart of MC is the experience of empathic connection between people.
• Enhanced speaking and listening to one another in a way that improves clarity and mutual understanding
• Increased ability to understand feelings, needs and requests that are not always clearly expressed within one’s self and with others.
• More fully developed ability to translate criticism, judgment, blame and other hard-to-hear messages into feelings and needs.
• Deepened empathic attitude and mutual respect.
• Improved ability to transform anger-one’s own and others-safely and respectfully.
• Reduced resistance and defensiveness with more overall cooperation.
Trainer: Jean Handley, Director of Turning Point Partners
www.restorativepracticestn.org
Costs: Training Cost and lunch: $60
Lodging Tuesday night and breakfast: Double, $45 and Single $70
