As Americans prepare for one of the most polarizing election seasons in living memory, Essential Partners is combining forces with Interfaith Photovoice and the Dispute Settlement Center to offer three free workshops to residents of the Triangle area of North Carolina (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill).
These three workshops will equip local community members with the skills to have more constructive, less divisive conversations about the tough topics that matter most. Register for one workshop or all three. Lunch will be provided.
Constructive Communication Skills Workshop
11:00am – 12:30pm
This session will anchor the participants in an understanding of why communication across differences can be challenging as well as a framework for more constructive conversations. Participants will learn and practice tools that strengthen the skills of listening, inquiry, reflection, and speaking, in order to promote more dialogic practices and meaningful interpersonal conversations.
Essential Photovoice Workshop
1:15pm – 2:45pm
The Essential Photovoice workshop will introduce you to our arts-based dialogue process by experiencing it. You will share your own photographs and tell stories about how you experience and express gratitude in everyday life. Engage other attendees with questions of genuine curiosity. And reflect on the ways you were impacted by the photovoice experience. Along the way, we will familiarize you with photovoice and you will have the opportunity to explore what a project or training could accomplish.
Listening Circle Workshop
3:00pm – 4:30pm
In this workshop, participants will practice the art of community-building through listening circles. Listening circles provide a structure for individuals to share honestly, listen deeply, discover shared values, sit with differences and connect across similarities. The listening circle is an intentionally organized space to help us step in the direction of our best self from wherever we are. The circle accepts us as we are, and acknowledges that we are born with an impulse to be in good relationship with others.
These workshops are made possible by the generous support of the New Pluralists’ Healing Starts Here initiative, which aims to empower local leaders, networks, and community groups who are addressing divisive forces in their neighborhoods, towns, and counties.
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