Blog Archives

Applications Now Open: 2024 Advanced Facilitation Training

9/25/2023

Facilitating Transformational Spaces & Experiences:
Advanced Facilitation 3-Day Training

Monday, March 18th - Wednesday, March 20th, 2024
In person. Washington, DC.
Pre-training virtual LAC: Thursday, February 29th, 1:00 PM - 3:30 PM EST
Post-training virtual LAC: Thursday, April 18th, 1:00 PM - 3:30 PM EST
For more information visit: Advanced Training Series

“I will create more opportunities for members to be artistic, creative, and visually engaged... I will do a much better job of putting time and intricacy into my meetings to create stronger, engaging, and strategic spaces. I feel I have added a bunch of tools to my toolbox.”

Our communities and organizations are powerless without cohesive and well-developed member bases that share a rooted analysis and have built the trust and discipline to react and plan as a united group. Consistent gathering places that are well-designed, and the reflective and skilled facilitation of them, are irreplaceable steps in developing this type of constituency. However, these essential skills are often overlooked as expendable "soft" components of organizing.

Far from being a luxury, effective meetings and skilled facilitation are vital in building the sense of common identity and cohesion necessary to transform a group of individuals into a constituency that can envision change and take the necessary risks to attain it. These ensuing "relationships of action" drive movement-based organizing work.

In our 3 day in-person Advanced Facilitation Training (AFT) you will learn and practice:

how to deepen your active facilitation, animation and listening skills while understanding your challenges and moving towards growth,
how to develop and manage transformative group processes,
how to develop impactful, multi-modal, graphic and arts-based agendas, and
how to utilize meetings as a strategic tool for constituency/base building and power building from a popular education lens.

MM's training approach is also grounded in somatics, expressive arts, story-sharing, popular theater, and ritual practices that engage participant's bodies and minds so that they can more fully experience the training content and deepen their growth. In addition, these approaches model ways to deeply ground community members in a lived experience of our collective values. We view these approaches as integral to allow us to embody the world we are trying to create within our organizing practice.

There will be two additional 2.5 hour virtual Learning and Action Circles (LAC) to ensure the learning and integration of the materials.

18 content hours + 5 hrs LACs + extensive manual and specialized resources.
To apply visit: 2024 Advanced Facilitation Training Application
Space is limited. Applications close Monday, February 19th.

For more information on our Advanced Trainings or to bring an Advanced Training to your organization, connect with us.

Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.

Maui Model: Community Sail Plan Rooted in Human Rights and Peace Guides Future Generations and Our Globe

9/19/2023

Contributed by Kaiea Medeiros, Kalonize (MM Alum) and Josh Cooper, Hawai'i Institute for Human Rights.

To directly support Maui residents affected, visit Maui Nui Strong - Maui Wildfire Relief.

The global climate crisis arrived aggressively on Maui, Hawai’i. The most isolated, inhabited land mass on the planet was directly impacted with devastation beyond comprehension with nearly a hundred deaths and 2,200 structures destroyed and 3,330 acres of land decimated.

Summer 2023 has been the season of climate change everywhere on earth. Climate change-fueled drought and hurricane high winds created detrimental and deathly conditions for raging wildfires burning the historic town of Lahaina to the ground. The climate crisis is not a looming threat but one we are living daily in this global climate emergency.

On August 8, there were 3 major fires across Maui island. However the spark that lit the flames devouring too many souls began centuries ago with imperial policies and industrial practices intended to dominate indigenous peoples of the Pacific.

The path toward peace on Maui requires a multifaceted historical and holistic approach rooted in the human rights of the maka’ainana. Keepers of the ancestral knowledge provide cultural context demanding new direction of mutual exchange instead of pattern of exploitation.

We must now decolonize, decorporatize, decarbonize and decentralize for Maui’s future.

The sovereign nation of Hawai’i was administered at moku’ula, Lahaina. King Kamehameha III continued navigating the 19th century securing sovereignty in rough seas of conquest. Ulu groves and niu marked the boundaries of this peaceful government. Over time, a baseball field and tennis courts attempted to cover the rich historical culture of the land. Only days after the inferno incinerated all in its way, a kalo plant emerged on Front Street.

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Many companies and corporations made decisions considering only profit and not the people or the planet. Water was diverted for multiple purposes geared toward profits with monocrops drying up fertile valleys and golf courses constructed instead of affordable housing. Monopolistic Corporations have constantly chose profit including the energy company continuing practices bad for planet and the people when alternative models exist. Renewable energy of solar provides clean, green and good resilient possibilities for Maui’s future.

The water must flow again from mauka to makai. Regenerative agriculture with an island wide compost system can be planted. Maui Nui Million Native Tree project provides canoes and reduces carbon for future generations. Syntropic agroforestry guarantees right to food for all. An ahupuaa model of sustainable development is the basis for a better life for all that considers the consequences of all decisions in our earth democracy. The people must exercise free, prior and informed consent to actualize the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

A low carbon economy centered around proactive, participatory public policy making and pono politics creates a collective love illuminating a bright future for Maui. Endemic ecology is the essential base centered around community engagement and circular economy.

We must accelerate action for Aina-Kanaka relationships supporting responsible and resilient ecology ensuring equality and equity.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides a blueprint to build back beautiful and better with bolder actions outlined in the 46 articles realizing the right to free, prior and informed consent. The UN 2030 Agenda provides 17 Global Goals that offer a to-do list balancing economic, social and cultural rights for climate action to achieve peace through partnership.

It’s Na’au or Never for Hawai'i and humanity.

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MM Technical Assistance: Youth Organizing for Climate Action and Racial Equity (YO-CARE)

9/4/2023

Over the last year, Movement Matters partnered with the Organizing Center and the Funders' Collaborative for Youth Organizing (FCYO) to provide direct coaching to youth organizing groups working on climate justice and racial equity as part of FCYO's Youth Organizing for Climate Action and Racial Equity (YO-CARE) Capacity-Building Fund.

We were thrilled to develop new meaningful relationships spanning the country, from Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice (Bronx, NY) to Juntos (Philadelphia, PA) to Florida Rising to Hawai'i Peace & Justice to Latinos Unidos Siempre/LUS Youth (Salem, Oregon) to one of our local partners in the DC region, Progressive Maryland. These powerful groups were eager and ready to implement new ideas and practices to level up their base building and organizing skills.

In addition to helping individual groups work on popular education curricula, cultural organizing and somatic-based activities, member engagement systems, and campaign strategies, we were also excited to be part of the facilitation team for FCYO's convening of 50+ organizers from YO-CARE grantee organizations this past summer in Atlanta.

A critical part of this gathering was a deep engagement with FCYO’s Power to Win Framework, which helped to stretch youth organizers’ thinking about how to approach long-term movement building. This orientation is deeply aligned with Movement Matters’ organizing framework and the way we engage partners when doing capacity building work. It was a pleasure to support the learning and integration of this model and to be in partnership with such a significant cohort of youth leaders from around the country.

Connect with us for more information on MM's Technical Assistance.

Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.

on building movements: what we see, what we hear.

Applications Now Open: 2024 Advanced Facilitation Training

Facilitating Transformational Spaces & Experiences:
Advanced Facilitation 3-Day Training

Maui Model: Community Sail Plan Rooted in Human Rights and Peace Guides Future Generations and Our Globe

MM Technical Assistance: Youth Organizing for Climate Action and Racial Equity (YO-CARE)

Authors

Archives

Categories

on building movements: what we see, what we hear.

Applications Now Open: 2024 Advanced Facilitation Training

Facilitating Transformational Spaces & Experiences: ​Advanced Facilitation 3-Day Training

Maui Model: Community Sail Plan Rooted in Human Rights and Peace Guides Future Generations and Our Globe

MM Technical Assistance: Youth Organizing for Climate Action and Racial Equity (YO-CARE)

Authors

Archives

Categories

Facilitating Transformational Spaces & Experiences:
Advanced Facilitation 3-Day Training