Cultivating Conditions for Liberation
A 6-PART, VIRTUAL LEARNING LAB FOR ADVANCED CHANGEMAKERS
Liberation is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves.
It is a daily practice. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
About the Learning Lab
Cultivating Conditions for Liberation: 6-Part Virtual Learning Lab
INVITATION
We invite you to join us in conversations, new thought forms, healings, rituals, and practices that root us in the delightful power of our hearts and carry us towards liberation in a six-part Learning Lab series called, Cultivating Conditions for Liberation. We seek to collaboratively cultivate the inner and outer conditions that lead toward a world in which people connect, feel supported, and have access to what is needed for them to thrive.
Facilitators, Dr. Shakti Butler and Eric Blackerby, discuss how these practices are beneficial for changing workplace culture and responding to unexpected challenges in one's life – like a terrifying ride at 30,000 feet.
"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." ~ Aboriginal activist, Lilla Watson
Join facilitators, Jackie Dennis and Alanya Snyder, in a conversation about how they lead affinity groups in unlearning white supremacy culture in order to heal together.
Learn more about each facilitator in the "Facilitators" section below.
WHAT TAKES PLACE DURING A LEARNING LAB?
Throughout each of the six unique sessions, you will develop tools, practices and experiences that support your pursuit of liberation internally and externally. The six-part series is segmented into three chapters.
In chapter one, we begin our work in the full multiracial group that reflects the great diversity of our country. For chapter two, we break out into smaller affinity groups for the purpose of healing and change. The BIPOC affinity group will focus on decolonization. The white affinity group will focus on learning to give and receive feedback for our inevitable mistakes.
For the third and final chapter, we spend our time together within the full multiracial group. Together, we will relax, learn, remember, laugh and maybe feel some deep sorrow. Whatever we experience, it will all lead towards our own healing, our racial healing and a building of the community we yearn for yet may have never known. We hope you will join us in this “time out” to radically imagine and find within ourselves the seeds and fresh growth of a strong, realistic new direction.
What is the meaning of liberation for you?
What are the conditions that might cultivate liberation?
Please note, when we talk about cultivating conditions for liberation, we seek to capture the attention of the heart, body, spirit and the brain. We do not come with formulas or answers. We come to learn together, and to share in large and small groups. We come to engage in specific practices with you. Through practices we can glean insights into truths that resonate in our hearts and the heart is where true transformation takes place.
We are excited about exploring with you as co-learners and peer collaborators. Please join us.
With love for liberation,
Shakti Butler, Eric Blackerby, Alanya Snyder, and Jackie Dennis
WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE?
We encourage more than 1 person from your organization participate so that teams can work together on the particulars of your workplace and learn collectively. This has proven to be the most effective means for achieving your organizational goals.
This is an advanced Learning Lab. It assumes that attendees have a basic understanding of:
-
why and how transformative approaches (versus strictly transactional ones) address white supremacy and structural racism;
-
the need for rooting in more creative, imaginative and mindful practices in order to move us towards greater transformation;
-
being aware of and having some experience in letting go of practices that keep us in siloed, top-down, supremacist and/or internalized oppressive ways of being;
-
the patterns and relationships that drive systems and structures;
-
the history and ongoing presence of colonialism, white supremacy, and exploitation;
-
how contemporary systems of inequity continue to be embedded in structures, cultures, and collective social identity formations.
DATES and TIMES – This is a 6-part Learning Lab (not the same one offered 6 times).
Dates: February 10, 11, 18, 25. March 3, 4, 2022.
Time: 9:30-12:30 Pacific time
Location: All sessions are online via Zoom. It will be structured to allow for adequate breaks.
PRICING & APPLICATION
NOTE: If you applied and were accepted for the Learning Lab in October, you do not need to re-apply. Please do let us know you intend to participate by contacting Ginny@world-trust.org.
The fee is sliding scale $400 - $700. Please follow all of the following steps to determine your suggested rate. It’s quick and painless.
-
What can my organization afford? If you are paying out of pocket, what can I afford?
-
Considering that there will be some people that truly cannot afford the lower end of the scale, can I pay a little more to help support the participation of those people with fewer resources than me/my organization?
-
Please be generous and honest with your assessment of your ability to pay.
-
Finally, if your application is accepted, how much will you pay? → This will not be a factor in your acceptance. We want to send an invoice with your acceptance notice.
Space is limited. Please complete your application ASAP.
Questions? Contact ginny@world-trust.org
Facilitators
SHAKTI
BUTLER, Ph.D.
Founder & President of World Trust
Shakti Butler, Phd. Founder and President of World Trust Educational Services, a 20+ year old non-profit producing films, learning labs and trainings, and curricula offering comprehensive capabilities necessary to help you solve the most complex issues of your organization.
Her work heals and transforms people, communities, and institutions. Shakti has produced 5 documentary films including the iconic, Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity, and Healing Justice.
All of Shakti's films and their educational guides are available here.
ALANYA
SNYDER
Co-Founder, Neighbors for Racial Justice
Alanya Snyder (she/her) is an educator who specializes in self-directed learning, and its relationship to social justice. She has worked with youth and adults in schools, independent study programs, and workshop settings for over 25 years, and in 2014 she co-founded Ka-Lo Academy, an organization which supports youth who have chosen to create an educational path outside of traditional school settings.
As an activist, and community organizer, Alanya has been engaged in collective anti-racist work for over a decade. She particularly credits the group Neighbors for Racial Justice with informing her practices.
ERIC
BLACKERBY
Facilitator,
World Trust
A graduate of Stanford University, Eric uses scholarship and art to take an honest, active and lighthearted approach to equity work.
His work has been performed on MTV and Nickelodeon, and has been featured in media outlets like HYPEBEAST, TIME and Entertainment Weekly.
An energetic and enthusiastic advocate for the transformative power of storytelling and other artforms, Eric believes that art is how we record what is worthy, and omit that which we deem unworthy and forgettable. Therefore, Eric uses art as a tool to cultivate the courage required to reflect upon and critique our dominant cultural norms. Furthermore, art acts as a doorway into one’s own capacity to imagine and immerse oneself in scenarios beyond our own lived experiences.
JACKIE
DENNIS
Co-Founder, Neighbors
for Racial Justice
Jackie Dennis has worked locally and internationally as an intuitive for the last 45 years. She is a long-time teacher, and social justice activist and advocate. Her spiritual practice and political work came together as a co-founder of Oakland’s Neighbors for Racial Justice (N4RJ).
With other N4RJ members, she designed a curriculum for white people — Transforming White Privilege on the Road to Racial Equity, and has been teaching the course for over three years. In the course of this work, Jackie and her co-facilitators have trained others as facilitators, and they are now taking the curriculum into their workplaces.
EXPERIENCES
"It was such an honor and privilege to participate! This learning lab has reassured me that the work I have been doing is important and serves a crucial purpose, especially in a predominantly white institution. It has also helped me recognize that I am enough (which I have trouble doing) and that by learning from my mistakes and being patient with myself, I can achieve great things that will have a positive impact on society, even if they seem small in the moment. Lastly, it encourages me to push the anti-racist framework wherever life takes me next."
"The fellowship with the rest of the learning community and the time and space to recenter around this work was invaluable...I came away feeling more energized and hopeful about my work than I have in a long time."
"I felt such awe and appreciation for the way that each of the leaders in their own unique way, yet collectively, held the large group. It was imperceptible to the eye, yet a very kinesthetic experience of being held firmly in a container that invited softness and loosening of tension to see a broader and more inclusive future. Thank You!"