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MINDFUL FACILITATION FOR EMPOWERMENT
(Gaia Education Training of Trainers)

4-25 February 2023

Venue

Koh Yaonoi, Southern Thailand

Facilitators

Jane Rasbash

Pracha Hutanuwatr

Daniel Sheinwald

This course constitutes part of a learning journey to become a certified Gaia Education Trainer. It is to help you deepen your experience in how to teach, facilitate and train people by enabling collaboration and participation among a community of learners. In addition, we support and hope to inspire you to know what you are most deeply called to teach, and most importantly, why this kind of education is so critically important for the future of life on Earth. 


Mindful Facilitators for Empowerment (and Gaia Education Trainers) will be equipped with the skills and methodologies to facilitate transformative learning environments and host multi-stakeholder conversations that enable collaborative action. The aim of the Training of Trainers is first and foremost, to help you deepen your experience in how to teach, facilitate and train people by enabling collaboration and participation among a community of learners.

Mindful Participatory Facilitation

This is an invaluable skill for leaders in the new paradigm, as it is equalizing and empowering rather than dominating. The aim of this session is for participants to gain knowledge, skills and attitudes of empowerment through experiential learning and hands-on application in a safe space. Participants will flourish in a dynamic balance of mindfulness practice and open experimentation with the design and facilitation of holistic education sessions.

Deepening Edge Work

Today’s edge workers are familiar with states of high dissatisfaction. They are willing to walk the path from business as usual towards regenerative design. Join us in the exploration of maximizing edges to add viability and vitality to your projects and how to optimize your networks into powerful zones of influence. 


Just as it is possible through the design of ecologically sustainable systems, to increase diversity and life by maximising the edges between neighbouring biological communities, so it is possible to create a larger edge effect in community development, thereby maximising its benefit to the society as a whole. This session will position Gaia trainers as maximisers of edges between different communities with differing modes of operation, power structures, cultures, physical environments and worldviews.

YOU WILL RECEIVE:

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  • Full tutorial support

  • Teachers manual (digital)

  • Gaia Youth Activities Guide (digital)

  • Certificate of completion from SEM College as well as Gaia Education*

  • Pathway to joining Gaia Education Certified Training Roster*


*Gaia Education certification will be awarded only to participants who will complete both the Mindful Facilitation for Empowerment training as well as SDG Training of Multipliers workshop.

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LEARNING GOAL

To gain knowledge, skills and attitudes of empowerment through experiential learning and hands-on application in a safe space

LEARNING OUTCOMES

INTRO TO PARTICIPATORY LEARNING & BUILDING COMMUNITY

Participants will be able to:

  1. recognise value of games as learning tools and processes for participation and co-creation of knowledge 

  2. comprehend the cycle of participatory learning (Praxis)

  3. express the relevance of co-creation of knowledge

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CYCLE OF PARTICIPATORY LEARNING, CO-CREATION OF KNOWLEDGE & 7 BASIC SKILLS

Participants will be able to:

  1. recognise value of building a safe container for learning 

  2. practice activities for community building

  3. apply 7 basic skills of participatory learning


TRUST BUILDING & LEARNING COMMUNITY

Participants will be able to:

  1. Employ techniques for building trust 

  2. Demonstrate participatory facilitation skills

  3. Practice Kalyanamitra as a means to deepen relationships


HOLISTIC AND CLEAR THINKING

Participants will be able to:

  1. recognise values and limitations of holistic, clear thinking 

  2. use tools to develop holistic / clear thinking


EMERGING DESIGN, WORKING WITH GROUP ENERGY, INTUITION AND MINDFULNESS

Participants will be able to:

  1. comprehend benefits of mindfulness as a facilitator 

  2. express how to work with emergent design & group energy

  3. practice giving and receiving feedback


PARTICIPATION, EMPOWERMENT & SOCIAL ACTION

Participants will be able to:

  1. comprehend principles of spiritual activism 

  2. apply tools to deliver heavy content

  3. value links between social action, community building and empowerment education

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Recommended Reading

ON FACILITATION:

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  • Bradley, D. and Schneider, H. (2009). VSO Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Approaches. 

Retrieved From: http://community.eldis.org/.59c6ec19/VSO_Facilitator_Guide_to_Participatory_Approaches_Principles.pdf

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  • Capra, F., & Luisi, P. L. (2014). The systems view of life: A unifying vision. Cambridge University Press.

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  • Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury publishing USA.

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  • Lakey, G. (2010). Facilitating group learning: Strategies for success with adult learners. John Wiley & Sons.

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  • Lesley, Martha, 2010.  Facilitation with Heart: awakening personal transformation and social change. Verlag: Discover Press. Chapter 1, 2 and 3

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  • Macy, J., & Brown, M. Y. (2014). Coming back to life: The guide to the Work that Reconnects. New Society Publishers.

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  • Mindell, A. (1985). Working with the dreaming body. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

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  • Mindell, A. (1990). Working on yourself alone: Inner dreambody work. Penguin (Non-Classics).

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  • Palmer, Parker J., (2007). The Courage to Teach. Jossey Bass: A Wiley Imprint.

    • Chapter 2 A culture of fear: education and the disconnected of life

    • Chapter 3 The hidden wholeness: paradox in teaching and learning

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  • Schumacher, E. F. (1995). A Guide for the Perplexed. Random House.

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ON MINDFULNESS:​

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  • Aoyama, Shundo (1991). Zen Seeds: Reflections of a female priest. Kosei Publishing.

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  • Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (1988). Mindfulness with Breathing: A Manual for Serious Beginners, translated by Santikaro Bhikkhu, Wisdom Publications.

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  • Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. New York: Hyperion. Chicago.

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  • Nhat Hanh, Thich (1999). The Miracle of Mindfulness, Boston: Beacon Press.

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  • Phra, T., & Swearer, D. K. (1989). Me and mine: Selected essays of Bhikkhu Buddhadāsa. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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  • Thera Nyanaponika (1975). The heart of Buddhist meditation: Satipatthana: a handbook of mental training based on the Buddha’s way of mindfulness: with an anthology of relevant texts transl. from the Pali and Sanskrit. London: Rider.

  • Trungpa, Chogyam (2002). Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Boulder, Colorado: Shambala.

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