Facilitating Racial Affinity Spaces: Builduing Bridges Across Difference

3-hour Virtual Workshop

Enrollment Options

Upcoming Workshops

Thursday, March 14, 2024

9:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific

About

About The Workshop

Workshop Description

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”

Audre Lorde

Racial affinity structures have become a more frequently used strategy for working toward racial justice within organizations and collaboratives. This workshop explores the nuance and intricacy of how to establish and host these types of spaces when engaging a shared vision of equity in a multiracial/multicultural context.

Racial affinity structures support people to do their own reflection, learning, growth, and healing with others positioned similarly in a system of racism and white supremacy (and other facets of oppression). These spaces support building relationships and processing what is most needed and meaningful for a group given their identities. When affinity spaces are created alongside ongoing individual work and thoughtful support to come together across differences of identity, conditions can be strengthened for a more honest and liberated multiracial/multicultural community.

Participants will do/experience:

  • Identify our own strengths, hopes & fears about leading affinity groups

  • Learn conditions and approaches that support effective facilitation of affinity spaces while creating a humanizing experience that builds positive group dynamics.

  • Gain strategies and resources to facilitate racial affinity groups in your context, including how to recognize and avoid common pitfalls.

  • Bridge knowledge and understanding of racial affinity to a more expansive vision of affinity beyond race.

  • Build connections with other practitioners facilitating affinity spaces across their organizations/communities.

“There is no shift in consciousness around race – neither knowing our part nor healing – without the grit that relating to each other makes possible.”

Ruth King

Who should attend:

Practitioners who are responsible for leading and facilitating affinity group spaces to support equity work in their contexts.

Seasoned equity leaders looking to connect with other leaders outside of their organizations

People who have attended or are currently attending a Center for Equity Leadership course and want to supplement their course work

 
 
Reviews

What Participants Are Saying

“A beautifully crafted space where belonging and healing is centered. It is a must for BIPOC leaders!”

– Sandy Maldonado

“I cannot explain how valuable and much needed this virtual learning space was for my soul. The ability to unlearn, and be able embrace my own healing, power and agency was something I did not know I needed but found.”

– Edith

“The material, presenters, vibrations, and overall experience is something I've never felt in 23 years of life. 10/10 recommend. I can't find the entire words just yet, other than just please sign up. “

– Maribel Sanchez

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

  • We are excited to offer Center for Equity Leadership Virtual Workshops. Our workshops are 3-hour interactive sessions where participants will engage with a single focused topic, connect with other equity leaders around the world, and gain new tools to add to their equity practice. Workshops are bite-sized nuggets of knowledge, frameworks and tools that are delivered in a highly engaging way.

    This workshop will be delivered in a live, 3-hour interactive learning session conducted online in Zoom. Attend the live session with facilitators and fellow participants and gain new knowledge and skills to bring back to your own context. Participants receive electronic versions of all resources and tools.

    We are intensely focused on humanizing our virtual spaces. We focus on interactivity and connection (these workshops are not webinars), frequent screen and body breaks, and attending to learning, practice, and healing in community with people around the world.

    • People who are new to equity leadership and want to dip their toes in before registering for a course

    • Seasoned practitioners of equity and rebel leadership who are looking to connect with other leaders outside of their organizations

    • People who have attended or are currently attending a Center for Equity Leadership course and want to supplement their course work

  • We provide an advance draft of our slide deck 24 hours before the session and enable live transcription and closed caption during the live Zoom session. Our sessions are recorded (absent any technical difficulties) and can be accessed for up to 30 days after the course concludes.

  • Because our trainings include attention to building a learning community and interaction with other folks in small groups, we encourage full participation for the duration of the training. However, we understand that our homes and workspaces are commingling in this time. We hope participants can fully engage during sessions, but support participants to attend to their own unique needs.

  • Workshop fee: $200/registration

    You will receive a password-protected Zoom link and any other pre-reads and resources prior to the event via email.

    Registration by credit card is our preferred method. We are a small (but mighty) organization and processing and collecting check payments for our events has a high administrative impact.

    Click here for information on paying by check or purchase order.

  • Information about cancellations and registration transfers can be viewed here.

  • Reach out to us at events@nationalequityproject.org

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“Fish did not discover water. In fact, because they are completely immersed in it, they live unaware of its existence. Similarly, when a conduct is normalized by a dominant cultural environment, it becomes invisible.”

— Marshall McLuhan