9th Annual Summer Intensive

About Our Work

Globally, we are in the midst of multiple and converging social, economic, and ecological crises: climate change, wars, famine, forced migration, identity-based violence, increasing fascism, pandemics and multiple genocides.

At Courage of Care, we understand the roots of our current crises to be fundamentally relational in nature – ruptures in relationship with our planet and with each other. Relational disconnection is threatening democracies and our collective social fabric: worldwide we are witnessing trends of greater inequality, polarization, alienation, and othering. Even in social justice movement spaces where community readiness for addressing systemic injustice has risen sharply, organizations and people require both healing and skills necessary to work in multi-identity spaces, to work through conflict generatively, and across issues or sectors.

We believe that the solutions to our crises can only be cultivated through nurturing and strengthening relational culture and solidarity within our communities, organizations and movements for justice and liberation. Without tending to the relational culture of our movements, we are building our movements on a fragile base, at risk of perpetuating the very systems of oppression that we are working to transform.

Our work therefore centers on supporting those working towards justice and liberation with skills to build coalitions rooted in compassion-based, truth-telling, counter-oppressive, healing-centered, visionary and transformative practice.

Our annual Summer Intensive offers participants a chance to explore and deepen in our model for building relational culture, which we call CourageRISE. New and experienced folks are most welcome!

Who This Training is For

This year's two-day intensive is focused on themes of Power, Precision and Protection. The event builds upon our new collaboration with The Arrow Journal, and its forthcoming 2024 issue and co-sponsored conversation series. We're committed to going deep together on the ethical uses of power, self and community defense, and the true possibility of freedom. Stay tuned for more information on this new collaboration and how to take part -- if you wish -- in the pre and post programming related to our summer intensive.

We have found this training particularly helpful for folks committed to healing, justice and liberation, including trainers, mediators, DEI professionals, community organizers, educators, creatives, NGO leaders, coaches and healers. We welcome and encourage folks interested in this work and committed to healing and justice to also join us, even if you do not formally work in this arena.

About the Intensive

The program meets in person from 10am-4pm EST / 2p-8p UTC on Saturday and Sunday, June 29th and 30th in Brooklyn, NY. (More details on location and lodging below!) We will not offer an online hybrid option this year, but stay tuned for details on how to join a series of online pre-intensive conversations!

Through contemplative and somatic practice, reflection, story, movement and art, we’ll learn tools and practices to help resource us in our lives, our relationships and our work. Specifically, we'll practice:

• deepening our capacity for compassion
• sharpening our understanding of how we can weild power ethically
• restoring healthy relationships with ourselves and others to strengthen our power
• sharpening our vision for a more alive and loving world
• embodying the people and communities we wish to live into.

About the Location

The intensive will be held at The Wyckoff, a private community house, event space and urban garden on the border of Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens. The closest MTA train stop is the L train at Halsey Street. The exact location of the house will be provided to registered attendees.

Folks will need to arrange their own off site accommodations for the retreat. Once registered, folks will be invited to join our online community portal for the retreat, where they can arrange shared housing with other attendees, if they choose. There are several local, walkable AirBnB options, as well as hotels a short car/bus ride away. Lunch and snacks will be provided on site during the retreat.

Our Agenda

Day 1: Saturday, June 29th, 2024 | 10-4pm Eastern

10:00-10:30

Setting the Relational Field: Welcome, Orientation, and Introductions

10:30-12:30

Courage: Building and Strengthening the We: Building Cultures of Belonging Rooted in Care

12:30-1:30

Lunch with Contemplative Reflection

1:30-3:30

Reveal Truths: Embodied Exploration of Individual and Collective PowerStress Shapes and Liberatory Shapes

3:45-4:00

Practice & Ritual Closing

Day 2: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 | 10-4pm Eastern

10:00-10:30

Contemplative Practice

10:30-12:00

Invest in Healing: Restoring Relationship: Reciprocity and Co-Regulation

12:00-1:00

Lunch

1:00-2:30

Sense Alternatives: On Joy, Creativity and Collective Imagination

2:30-2:45

Break

2:45-3:45

Embody Beloved Community: On Risk & Co-Liberation

3:45-4:00

Closing & Commitments

About Your Hosts

The weekend will be led by a team of facilitators from the Courage of Care Coalition - a global community of social justice activists, contemplative practitioners, educators, health and social service professionals, committed to co-creating a more loving, just and liberated world.

Maha El-Sheikh (she/her) brings her experience in international humanitarian work with studying and teaching trauma-informed yoga, somatics, and meditation to explore the interconnection of healing, social transformation, and justice. She is core faculty at Courage of Care Coalition, and partners with leaders in economic, racial, gender and climate justice movements to reimagine the world through compassion-centered, counter-oppressive, liberatory frameworks.

Brooke D. Lavelle, Ph.D. (she/her) is the co-founder of Courage of Care. She holds a Ph.D. in Buddhism and Embodied Cognition, and is committed to ways in which individuals and communities develop cultures of practice that support love, health and liberation. Brooke has consulted to various human rights, education and spiritual organizations, and has experience leading national and international political, educational and climate justice projects. Through her work at Courage, Brooke understands the challenges of trying to build alternatives to the status quo, and remains steadfastly convinced that another way is possible.