Access Recording - De-colonising Our Non-Violence in the Context of COVID-19

Greetings! If you missed this event on May 31 - have no fear. 

You can still register to access the video recording. 

All proceeds support POC4NVC. 

====

Please join POC4NVC for a return to our open call series, exploring the principles of Non-Violent Communication from the lens of black, indigenous, and people of color practitioner perspectives (BIPOC). 

In this talk, panelists will explore what it means  to decolonise their practice. 

• Is it possible to remove the impacts of settler-colonial behaviour from our own communication patterns?  What are we moving towards and what are we returning to? 
• How do we  understand the principles and practice of non-violence within the  context of our current global pandemic, in which settler-state policies directly and disproportionately result in black, brown, and indigenous loss of life?

This call is the second in a developing series to  create a space for marginalized voices to be centred and honored within the NVC community. Real-time captioning will be available for this call.

Suggested donation is $25 USD - no one turned away for lack of funds. All proceeds will go towards POC4NVC and funding our first NVC retreat for people of colour. 

Panelists: 

Maria Lemos has led NVC trainings of humanitarian relief staff for Mercy Corps (Guatemala 2012-2014), trainings in US and Colombian prisons, and has worked with the International Red Cross to improve their principle-based practice globally (Uganda, Colombia, Jamaica, Kurdistan, 2015). Maria has served as a volunteer for Freedom Project since 2008 and has incorporated NVC skills and needs-based consciousness into her practice since 2008. Maria has more than 10 years of work with vulnerable populations (women, children, prisoners, HIV infected, immigrants, TB infected, sexual and gender minorities, refugees, racial, ethnic, political and religious minorities).

Jeyanthy Siva is an international trainer/facilitator, mediator and  coach. She has been facilitating trainings and team retreats since 2000  and travels between Asia, Europe and the USA. In the course of her work, she has trained climate change Activists (Global  Network), mutli-religious clergy engaged in peacebuilding (Sri Lanka),  women grass roots activists and peacebuilders (Thailand), development  and peace building organizations (East Timor, Sri Lanka), war affected youth to heal trauma and build community and  resilience (Sri Lanka) and dialogue and skill building among groups in  conflict (Nepal). Recently, her focus has been facilitating organizations in transition to  address issues of inclusion, diversity, power/privilege and internal  dynamics of discrimination and conflict in teams working together.

https://communication-matters.net/

Leonie Smith

Leonie Smith is a first-generation Canadian of Jamaican heritage and co-founder of POC4NVC, a network dedicated to  supporting people of colour in NVC community. She is founder of  a consultancy dedicated to supporting organisations and individuals find ways of working that are less harmful and more inclusive, The Thoughtful Workplace. She has more than 20 years experience in senior management positions championing an approach to leadership that supports care and efficiency towards a shared purpose.

Azzam Talhami

 Azzam Talhami is a Palestinian CNVC Certified Trainer, peace-builder, and mental health advocate. He has trained hundreds of people across the Middle East, Europe and the US in peace-building and Nonviolent Communication (NVC), including at the MidEast International Intensive Training in NVC in Beit Jalla, Palestine. Dedicated to supporting historically conflicting communities towards a just peace, he has trained the students at the Peace Engineers School in Ukraine in sustainable peace and NVC, in partnership with PAX, the Netherlands, with the support of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany. Azzam founded the NVC Arabic Academy, leading in-person and online classes for Arabic-speaking journalists, psychologists, and aspiring peace-builders across the world, as well as creating programs that train international peace organizations, such as for forumZFD. Devoted to sharing the story of his people through the lens of compassion, his interests as a guest speaker and teacher include deepening the conversation around power and privilege. He has served as an on-camera political analyst, news correspondent, documentary filmmaker, journalist, translator, and war-zone photographer for many Palestinian, Israeli, Russian, and American media outlets. Among these, he has been a translator and Middle East journalist consultant for the AT&T Original Documentary The Volunteers on Audience Network, as well as writer and reporter for Huffington Post Arabic and Ma’an News Agency. As a means of self-expression, Azzam pours his heart and soul into writing poetry. One of his particularly compelling pieces, What Does Living Under the Occupation Mean? gained attention from peace activists around the world and was translated into English and Hebrew.

https://www.azzamtalhami.com

Moderator:

Meenadchi

Meenadchi is an NVC facilitator and practitioner whose work blends transformative justice principles and trauma-informed  care with a decolonial lens. Meenadchi's practice is rooted  in lessons learned over a decade's worth of work in crisis  stabilization, including first crisis response and advocacy for black  and brown youth directly impacted by systemic oppression and carceral  forms of state violence. Meenadchi is the author of "Decolonizing  Non-Violent Communication", the inaugural publication of Co-Conspirator  Press, and primarily supports audiences who seek to expand their  understanding of internalized supremacy and develop deeper collective  practices of accountability and care.

www.traumainformednvc.com