3 Things for Building Skillful Coalition
This spring, Evergreen will hold our 6th annual Equity Symposium. Each year the Equity Symposium creates space for our community to come together toward the common goal of growing our knowledge and skills in the areas of equity, social justice, and liberation. This year our theme is Building Skillful Coalition. With our common goal of learning, we come together to inquire and share skills for building coalitions, partnerships, and collaborations. Our keynote speaker Loretta J. Ross has spent her career in human rights and reproductive justice advocating for diverse groups to work together toward the common goal of advancing human rights and liberation. Her online offerings on Calling In the Call Out Culture focus on developing relational skills and strategies that can help us build skillful coalition during these divisive times. You can access her new e-course here Calling In Course Loretta Ross (thinkific.com)
In this spirit, here are 3 things we can focus on for Building Skillful Coalition:
1.Listening to one another.
Easier said than done, deep listening skills take intention, practice, and commitment. The next time you are granted the opportunity to hear someone’s story, see if you can practice mindfully listening without distraction, without an analysis going in the background, or practicing how you will respond. Remember how you feel when someone gives you the gift of listening deeply when you have something to share.
2. Proactively assuming that trauma will show up in our environments and movements.
When we understand that trauma is a part of the human experience and expect that it will show up in our groups and movements, we can prepare to calm and settle ourselves when we are activated and offer empathy and understanding when we recognize that others may be experiencing a trauma response.
3. Realizing we all have a unique role to play in our movements for justice and liberation.
We all possess strengths that can be utilized and it is our diverse talents and gifts that make coalitions effective. Movements are made not just of policy makers and activists who use direct action tactics, but we also need artists, educators, counselors, even accountants to lend their skills to our social justice work.
We hope you will join us for part or all of the Symposium programming and that you will learn something about Building Skillful Coalition that you can use in your everyday interactions with our Evergreen community. More info about the Symposium here: https://www.evergreen.edu/equity-symposium
evergreen.edu/academics/centers-institutes/social-justice-center
