Gender Reconciliation Training

GENDER RECONCILATION WORKSHOP

We are partnering with Gender Reconciliation International (GRI) again to bring their innovative, unique training to the UK.

Please book into the training by emailing natalie.collins@dayprogramme.org.

In every segment of society, irrespective of race, class, religion, or sexual orientation, women and men grapple daily with the profound impacts of cultural conditioning around gender and sexuality. Moreover, it is the daily acts of violence and micro-aggressions which take place within many intimate relationships that establish the social conditions which bring about manifestations of violence on a greater scale. Given that gender is a central fault-line in all societies, sustainable peace requires the transformation of gender relations.

This three-day workshop offers a practical step to confronting and dismantling personal and cultural patterns of gender conditioning at multiple levels so as to address the ways in which men and women perpetuate gender injustice. Through skillful and creative collaboration, participants will gain insights from this process that contribute directly to addressing and transforming gender relations. New relational skills and a culture of deep respect and integrity between the sexes will be fostered, fuelled by heightened mutual awareness of the gender conditioning experienced by both women and men in our society.

Workshop Information

Please join us for an Introductory Gender Reconciliation Workshop, 15th - 17th June 2017. We encourage facilitators, trainers, religious leaders, therapists involved in peacebuilding, reconciliation, conflict resolution, and/or gender work in the UK or internationally to attend. The workshop is also open to the public. All are welcome - whatever your faith, ethnic and cultural background, sexual orientation or gender identity.

The long-term objectives of Gender Reconciliation International are to contribute towards:

Transforming underlying gender and sexual injustice and inequality in all countries where GRI works.
Reducing levels of gender-based and sexual violence, including among communities at particular risk of it.
Establishing just and compassionate relations between women and men.

“I have been looking for a long time to find a way to bring healing and reconciliation between women and men… This work is the answer.”

Nozizwe Madlala Routledge, former Deputy Speaker of Parliament in South Africa.

"I was deeply moved and changed, and am profoundly grateful for the experience…So many clients in my psychiatric practice are depressed and traumatized by gender violence, as is our entire culture. The [Power of Reconciliation] vision is unique, and uniquely valuable to the world.”

Peter Rutter, MD, Jungian psychiatrist, author of “Sex in the Forbidden Zone"

Workshop Details

DATE: 15th - 17th June 2017

TIME: 9am - 5.15pm

LOCATION: St Peter’s Church, 310 Kennington Lane, SE11 5HY

NEAREST TUBE: Vauxhall

PRICE: £200

If you are planning to travel from outside the UK, please be aware

we cannot provide visa invitations for workshop participants.

For further information about the practical aspects of the training or if you would like to attend, but cannot afford the full price, please contact Natalie (sparkequip@gmail.org).

CONCEPT NOTE

WORKSHOP

Workshop Facilitators

Shirsten Lundblad, M.Div. is a GERI Trainer and Senior Facilitator. She has over 30 years experience in the healing arts with youth groups, schools, yoga studios, treatment centers, churches, dementia care facilities, and clinical settings. As a teacher of yoga, drumming, music, meditation, and therapeutic modalities, Shirsten is committed to facilitating healthy community. In her studies at Harvard Divinity School her focus was on feminist theology, women’s studies in religion, and comparative religions.

Julien Devereaux Ph.D. is a GERI Trainer and Senior Facilitator. He has over 28 years experience as a coach, a consultant, and a clinical counselor. Julien is trained in many cognitive-behavioral, affective, experiential and transformative techniques for helping individuals and organziations grow and transform. Julien is a GERI Trainer and senior facilitator and has been involved with GERI for nearly 20 years. He is the current chair of the ManKind Project, USA.

Workshop Methodology

Gender Reconciliation workshops apply an experiential learning methodology facilitated in a group or community setting, providing a community-based approach to gender analysis which complements activist, political, and academic approaches. An experiential and reflective methodology shape the techniques employed. The workshop will combine a broad range of modalities necessary for skillful navigation through the sometimes delicate, and volatile, dynamics of transforming gender relations and gender-based violence; always ensuring respect for both women and men’s experiences. The workshop will be highly participatory, and will comprise experiential processes and exercises; discussions and dialogue in plenary, small groups, pairs; and debriefings. Through this approach, a forum is provided in which participants can enter into an exploration of their own gender conditioning, and can challenge their assumptions about the other gender through hearing their stories. In this forum, the witnessing and understanding of the pain of both genders is carefully facilitated. The process requires the fullness of participants’ humanity, and participants are encouraged to integrate their physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions, so as to create the conditions for genuine gender transformation.

TO READ A CONCEPT NOTE ABOUT THE WORKSHOP, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

“Awesome! This really works; it changes peoples’ lives. . .”

Karambu Ringera, PhD, International Peace Initiatives, Nairobi, Kenya.

Workshop objectives

Create a safe forum for the sexes to jointly confront dysfunctional gender and sexuality conditioning in society, and in the workplace.
Facilitate skillful acknowledgement, truth-telling, and deep listening in relation to participants’ personal histories.
Foster new levels of sensitivity and mutual awareness among women and men, and between gender and sexual minorities.
Cultivate respectful and authentic dialogue between the sexes on sensitive gender issues, including communication skills for addressing conflicts.
Promote new forms of relating between the sexes imbued with mutual appreciation, compassion, and trust.
Build a collaborative network of people who are committed to transforming gender relations, and who are mutually accountable to one another.

Booking In

Please book into the training by emailing natalie.collins@dayprogramme.org.

For further information about the practical aspects of the training, please contact Natalie: natalie.collins@dayprogramme.org.

For further information about the GRI Training content, please contact Judy: jbekker@rbanet.co.za