NVC & Diversity:
Focus on Race, Ethnicity and Social Class
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August 10 - 17, 2008 in Albany, NY
(Arrival: August 10, 3:30 - 5:30pm; Departure: August 17, after lunch)
with trainers
Nancy Kahn, Kanya Likanasudh,
Roxanne Manning, Edmundo Norte & Myra Walden
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Nancy Kahn: Nancy is the Executive Director and founder of Mission Dignity, a youth-led Peer Education and College Resource Center in San Francisco's Mission District, and board member of Honoring Emancipated Youth (HEY), formerly the San Francisco Foster Care Initiative. As an adult biracial, transracial adoptee-a Black Russian Jew-Nancy has spent her lifetime focusing on the complexity of her own racial identity, needs for belonging and acceptance, the role of labels around identity and her longing for compassion and sensititivity around racial, cultural and class differences. Nancy teaches weekly NVC classes in the Bay Area as a staff trainer with BayNVC, and has been a trainer for the BayNVC Leadership Program. Her passion is bringing NVC to diverse settings, to communities of color, to youth and to under-represented groups. She focuses on working with schools, community-based organizations, local groups, families and couples by leading organizational trainings, classes, holding private sessions and co-leading residential trainings. Nancy, Jeyanthy Siva, Inbal Kashtan, and Miki Kashtan co-founded the BayNVC Diversity Project, offering NVC trainings to people in diverse communities working towards social change and peace, as well as contributing to greater diversity within the local NVC community. BayNVC's Diversity Project currently aims to support people of color in becoming trainers and pursuing NVC certification, in addition to providing NVC training to diverse groups at reduced rates and/or at no cost. She is currently a masters candidate in the School of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley and resides in Daly City. She is also involved in an exciting internship with the Administrative Offices of the Courts, Center for Families and Children of the Courts where she is working on a special project to support the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care, and a research project to hear directly from youth about their experiences in juvenile delinquency courts. Return to top. |
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Kanya Likanasudh: Throughout my teenage years, I lived in Thailand, India, and England before finally settling in America. One of the issues I faced was my struggle to integrate elements of these different cultures in ways that still enabled me to stay true to myself. I have also experienced a sense of isolation for a multiple of reasons, ranging from my lack of understanding of the cultural assumptions underlying humor in jokes to my difficulty in including my voice in a political system whose operation I don’t understand. However, having lived in these various countries, I discovered that the issues of people within the various societies are similar: the needs underlying the problems people face are indeed universal. My transitions through various cultures resulted in my focusing my energy on work that fosters communication and understanding. I earned a Masters of Divinity from Naropa University. I then completed the North American Nonviolent Communication Leadership Program from BayNVC and a body-centered psychotherapy training program from the Hakomi Institute and now work as a psychotherapist in Boulder, Colorado. My approach to communications training weaves an integral spiritual perspective with a deep understanding of the roles of the body, mind and emotion. I teach Compassionate Communication and Coaching for Personal and Social Transformation at Binghamton University in New York. I also have ongoing relationships with several programs involved with peace work in Thailand, my native country, where I teach NVC. Return to top. |
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Roxanne Manning: I came to the US from Trinidad when I was 7. One of the most surprising and painful things for me about my new home was that so many people separated themselves into groups and noticed what was different about each other, and me, instead of the many ways in which we are all the same. Over many years in a variety of settings, I saw many people in agony because of this focus on difference, because of an inability to connect with each other's hearts rather than the differences society tells us exists. I worked for three years after college at a juvenile maximum security prison and a program for victims of violence. In both settings, I felt completely hopeless and disheartened about the depth of pain which so many people endure, and the violent choices they make in response to their anguish. I went to graduate school and earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, hoping to gain more effectiveness in easing some of the suffering I saw. I found the tools of psychology incredibly helpful, and continued to focus my energy in supporting people of color, women, and parents. I was introduced to NVC in 2003 at an IIT in Argentina and found immediate personal benefit. I then went on to attend, and now work as a trainer for, the BayNVC Leadership Program and several intensives. I continue to work with couples and individuals, but now integrate NVC in my therapeutic approach. When I witness people finding their own personal transformation through NVC, I feel excited that in supporting others in deepening their NVC consciousness and skill, I am supporting them to live a life that is more joyful, connected and free. I am supporting them to create the kind of world I want my children to grow up in - a world where we are interdependent, where each person's uniqueness is celebrated and is seen as a contribution to the vital fabric of the whole. (Fun facts: I love reading (especially fiction), child and nature photography, baking, and storytelling.) Return to top. |
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Edmundo Norte: Edmundo Norte is the Director of Education Services for the Mexican American Community Services Agency, the largest social services agency serving the Latina/o community in California's Silicon Valley. He has taught courses at San Jose State University's Department of Educational Leadership, and for California State University East Bay's Master of Urban Teacher Leadership program. He is a national consultant on issues of diversity and equity, transformative leadership, and presents seminars on "A Human Development Approach to Transforming Power, Perceptions, and Society". In 2003 he began using Nonviolent Communication in his work on equity and multiculturalism, and he completed the Bay Area Center for Nonviolent Communication's North American Leadership Program. His work now aims to integrate critical consciousness with compassionate interpersonal connection in taking action to truly transform the domination paradigm of our society, from moment to moment. While his formal education has always been rooted in developmental psychology, he began his professional career as a bilingual, elementary-level teacher and has since worked at every level of public education. He holds a master's degree from Harvard University and has nearly completed his doctoral work there in the department of Human Development and Psychology with a focus on risk and prevention. He acknowledges that by far his greatest learning experience and joyful, heart-wrenching challenge to date has been that of applying his knowledge, experience, and efforts to the developmentally responsible parenting of his two children—an ongoing labor of love. Return to top. |
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Myra Walden: Originally from Mexico, I came to the United States in 1983, when I met and married her husband Peter. Peter gave me the opportunity to fulfill my life's dream: to go to college so I could make a living supporting people seeking to heal from emotional distress. I went to the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I obtained a B.A. in psychology, and then to the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, where I got a master's in clinical psychology. I have a private therapy practice in West Chicago. I came upon Nonviolent Communication (NVC) in March 1999 when I attended a workshop with Dr. Marshall Rosenberg in Chicago. At the end of the day, I was blown away with the possibilities I saw this philosophy had for promoting peace in the world. Since then, I have pursued NVC wholeheartedly, and this has contributed to increased inner peace as I treat myself more compassionately, and greater harmony in my relationships. In March of 2000 I received a certification to teach Nonviolent Communication, and this has become my greatest joy and passion. As I see it, embodying and teaching NVC enables me to sow seeds of peace.Return to top. |
Children's Program
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Joshua Hathaway: Joshua has apprenticed himself to the natural joy and authenticity of children for just shy of ten years now. His passion for contribution and connection with young people has led him to teach Physical Education, with a healthy smattering of other subjects, at a small private school in Santa Cruz, California for more than half of that. Father of a six-year-old boy and to a sixteen-year-old girl, he is dedicated to deepening his ability to affirm the freedom and intrinsic beauty of children of all ages. Nonviolent Communication has been an indispensible vehicle along this path. By Grace and the kindness of his teachers he was permitted to complete the North American Leadership Program in Nonviolent Communication through BayNVC in 2005. He has also been in a leadership role in the BayNVC Family Camps since 2004, including two iterations of the Parent Peer Leadership Program (brain-/heart-children of Inbal Kashtan). In June of 2008 he will be graduating with his Master's Degree in Holistic Counseling Psychology and leaping out into an ocean of possibility. Things you might see him doing at this intensive include, but may not be limited to, playing various games with children and adults, improvising dramatic silliness with other human and non-human entities, playing a drum or flute or guitar, playing "kung fu master" in the early morning hours, or just hanging out and connecting. Return to top. |
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Stephanie Mattei: Stephanie Bachmann Mattei is the fullfilled mother of 3 homeschooled children: two boys ages 11 and 7 and one girl age 3). Stephanie, who has a Ph.D. in History of Religions, is a certified parent educator, a graduate of the 2006 BayNVC's Nonviolent Communication Peer Parent Leadership Program (PPLP), and an assistant to the PPLP 2007. Stephanie has been serving for over 10 years as a volunteer with La Leche League International, facilitating support group meetings, and consulting with mothers about breast-feeding and parenting issues. Stephanie has a real passion for parenting education, personal growth and social justice. She loves playing and learning with and from her kids. Stephanie leads workshops, writes parenting articles and offers parenting/attachment phone counseling based on the teachings of Nonviolent Communiction. You can contact her at Stephanie4peace@yahoo.com. Return to top. |
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