We hit the ground running in January with the launch of our Trainer Leadership Initiative. With the generous support of the Angell Foundation, this brand new program will provide intensive yearlong Council mentorship and professional development for 30 dynamic individuals, many of whom are alumni of our Social Justice Council Project. The new cohort of prospective trainers will receive an immersion in the skills and knowledge they need to lead their own programs and trainings and to extend the work of Council within their own organizations and communities, growing a more robust network of Council leaders throughout Southern California. We are so energized by the range of experiences and objectives of these 30 unique and diverse men and women, and we think you will be too. Check out our website for intimate profiles of some of these dynamic emerging leaders!
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Center for Council Director Jared Seide recently traveled to Auschwitz to coordinate daily Council circles at the annual Bearing Witness Retreat in partnership with Zen Peacemakers. Read a detailed description of this incredible, invaluable, and powerful work. Center for Council Director Jared Seide with Bernie Glassman and Ann Murray, in Krakow, Poland en route to Auschwitz. In these heartbreaking times, we feel grateful to have the means to come together with open hearts to bear witness, take stock, deepen community, and to celebrate our common humanity. We want to share with you a little of what we've recently been up to. Each year, Center for Council's Social Justice Council Project provides a select number of community-based, social service and arts organizations with individualized Council training and with resources to support their missions, help enhance and deepen their work, and bring folks together in Council. On June 24, 2016, Center for Council was so pleased to host the Social Justice Council Project Gathering and Celebration at the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens. At this event, all of this year's Social Justice Council Project participants came together to share how they're integrating Council into their important and unique work in the world. The day featured circles and activities led by participating organizations, cultural performances, a special phoned-in presentation by one of our incarcerated Council leaders, and lots and lots of Council. It was truly a day of festivity and a special chance to bring together a new and growing coalition of like-minded organizations working to empower their communities through the practice of listening and storytelling.
In the midst of so much suffering in the world right now, this event was a much-needed reminder of all the good that exists--and of all of the big-hearted people working hard within our local communities to support compassion, peace, and wellbeing for all. It was also a powerful confirmation of Council's potential, in any setting, to ease pain, increase engagement, and enable us to flourish together at a time when it is so needed. Check out Sam Escobar's powerful and inspiring essay on leading Center for Council's Inmate Council Program at Salinas Valley State Prison, recently published online!
Center for Council, in partnership with Zen Peacemakers, offered a Council training workshop in Sarajevo for a group of Croat, Serb and Bosniak peacemakers, organized by two dynamic Imams. Three participants in last year’s Zen Peacemakers Bearing Witness Retreat to Auschwitz had come from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). They arrived in Poland with some trepidation about just what the plunge would be like. They left shaken and pretty raw. When Jozo and I met them this month in Sarajevo, they were eager and energized. “I’ve missed you guys so much,” Boris said, “and, seeing you here, I’m starting to realize what the trip to Auschwitz was really about and why I’ve been feeling so unsettled these past months.” Turning toward suffering can take many forms. As a practice, it can seem counterintuitive and, to be wholesome, it demands skillful means, deep fortitude and compassion. The suffering of the Bosnian people is deep and profound and the events of twenty years ago are still tender and uncomfortable. Even now, excruciating memories are triggered by certain sites, uncorked stories, even turns of phrase. Despite the notorious “Bosnian humor,” an off-color and surprising proclivity for diffusing tension with dark jokes, there seems to be a longing for a real encounter with our common experience of suffering. So much there has gone unaddressed, unrestored, unmet… and a deep and embodied experience of coming together to grieve, release, celebrate feels emergent. Or so we imagined, as we designed a 4-day Council Training with an assortment of peaceworkers engaged in the complex and challenging work of rebuilding. The Zen Peacemakers Order is deeply committed to building relationships and bearing witness in BiH. Last year, the ZP team visited BiH with Vahidin Omanovic and Mevludin Rahmanovic, two Imams who have created the Center for Peacebuilding (CIM), based in Saski Most, BiH. Their inspiring work is devoted to fostering reconciliation between Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. As their website states: “The legacy of violence, particularly the heavy toll it took on civilians, informs the present climate of distrust. Bosnia’s social fabric which, previously embraced diversity and multiculturalism, must be rebuilt by individuals and their respective communities. CIM’s mission is to empower people to work through their trauma and transform the society’s conflict.” The Zen Peacemakers administration decided to postpone the Bearing Witness retreat there to 2017, and to focus on deepening relationships and building capacity. One offering was to help CIM train a cohort of its members in the practice of council. The thought was that council could be a useful tool for CIM’s work throughout the region, as well as a way to equip a local team to co-lead council circles throughout the Bearing Witness Retreat next year. Both Mevludin and Vahidin had experienced council in Auschwitz but, like Boris, they were curious about its relevance and applicability to a culture that had created, and was recovering from, historic unrest. As with Rwanda, I was moved and honored to accept the charge of dropping into the field and introducing the practice, in partnership with a group of folks who had lived through genocide and were committed to healing their country and its diverse communities. As with Rwanda, I set forth with a strong intention to share this practice of council, tempered by awareness of my profound ignorance of the culture, conditions, relationships and language. I was blessed with an extraordinary partner in Jozo Novak, who has been studying council for several years and had grown up in the region, immersed in the culture and speaking the language. Jozo has navigated a profound relationship with BiH and has looked deeply at the impact it has had on him and his peers. His ability to translate, both the language and the culture, was invaluable. And so it was our intention to enter humbly and listen deeply and to invite our friends there to try on the practice of council and experience how it might engage them, and they it. I began the workshop with a bit of a gimmick, admittedly – partially to diffuse some of the tension of expectations and the onus of being an “outside expert.” Before the group arrived, we assembled chairs in rows, placed a podium at the front of the room and began the workshop in the style to which so many had become accustomed, what the participants called “frontal learning.” After a few minutes of presentation, I asked the group to pause and say what they were noticing, what their expectations were, how they were experiencing their body/mind/heart/spirit as a result of this format. And then we shifted the furniture. Working in a circle is, of course, a common practice for reconciliation work, but the careful and subtle awareness of what it feels like to be seen, included, “on-the-same-level,” open and connected would be revisited throughout our days together, taking on greater depth and subtlety. The councils that followed and the teaching about the essential elements of this practice reinforced the power of creating a container for deep presence, offering an invitation to let go of our expectations and judgments and to celebrate the opening of our hearts. As the stories came, the participants began to let down their guard and shed armor they were mostly unaware of. They began to see the impact of engaging our narrative as a generative act that leads to healing. And they articulated the emergent awareness that intimacy with our personal suffering is the key to being effective working with the suffering of our communities. In addition to experiencing the variety of modalities of council, we talked about neuroplasticity and meditation, attention and self-regulation. I shared some metta practices and the brilliant work that Roshi Joan Halifax is doing around teaching compassion; her GRACE model is powerful and easy to practice. We talked about the “field,” inside and outside the circle, and liminality. We spent a great deal of time on identity; aspects of ourselves we present and those we hide and how that impacts relationships (as well as the work of council). And we played with forms of witnessing each other and the awareness of things waking up in us. It was powerful to hear Rumi’s poetry recited by an Imam: “Beyond right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field; I will meet you there.” The feeling of elation and inspiration by the last day was palpable. But the participant who, Jozo and I agreed, put up the most resistance throughout the first day described an extraordinary journey through this work, perhaps more dramatic than the others. She spent an hour in the bar after day one, expressing her confusion and frustration and had to be convinced by Vahidin to come back the next day. She was frustrated to not see the methodology laid out clearly, to be asked to experience a series of weird sensations that were uncomfortable and to be groping for a tool that didn’t seem to make sense. She went home that night, she later explained, and spent two hours relating her day to her husband. She talked about the unusual, puzzling sensations and this new approach that was really unaligned with the expectation she had of learning about a new technique. Something was stirring in her that was new, peculiar, but it had her attention. Day two began to open the floodgates for her. She had hardened herself to her pain and closed off the part of her that could engage both her own story and her empathy for others. As her trust grew, her resistance abated; the council circle was encouraging her to soften, to move the energy, to turn toward the suffering. That night, apparently, the debrief with her husband went on for three hours, until her husband asked her to stop talking. And her take-away at the end of our time together was a sensation that she explained to us all was like nothing she had ever experienced: a lifting of a huge weight from her shoulders and cracking of a hard shell that left her feeling joy and deep love for the group that had listened so deeply and heartfully that she was able to “come back to myself.” The day after the workshop she posted online that she missed us all dearly and that she’d spent all morning explaining the “amazing 4 days” to her NGO coworkers and had convinced them all to come to a council circle she would facilitate for them shortly. Three other participants related stories of initiating council circles with peers and family. In the end, I was left with immense gratitude. The commitment of ZP to foster this work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the openness and embrace of the kind and caring Imams who run CIM, the passion and hard work of Roshi Frank de Waele of Gent Zen Sangha to organize and raise funds, the tender and powerful support Jozo brought to the circle… And what a blessing to experience the amazing and inspiring courage, rigor and resilience of this group of change-makers, living the healing that comes from a great intimacy with suffering and a devotion to opening the heart to serve themselves, each other and the healing of their community. I am so excited to see how this work and this group continues to deepen. I hope you all will have a chance to bear witness with them in circle next year. “How Simple the Answers Are” Testimonials from Council in Bosnia/Herzegovina In March 15-18 2016, The Zen Peacemakers, together with the Center for Peacebuilding and led by Center for Council Director Jared Seide (Read Jared’s report of the training here), conducted a four-day Way of Council training for 22 Bosniak, Croats and Serb women and men. This training is another step in the peacebuilding effort to address the deep suffering in the balkans following the genocide of the ’90’s.
“When I think of Council… It is fascinating how many layers of prejudices and expectations you have to strip off yourself to enter into an honest heart-to-heart conversation. It is fascinating how even when you think you have reached that point, you get astonished realizing how far you have to go to get to the point of speaking and listening heart-to-heart. And it is fascinating how, when you think that nobody sitting there with you can surprise you anymore, you discover that you have not even started that conversation. It is fascinating to discover that everybody can go far beyond in sharing the pain we all have. But above all, it is fascinatinghow simple the answers are. All you have to do is to be there, to step in it and let yourself be… whoever you never had an idea you were.” (Nikica Lubura-Reljic) “Last week’s training in council was an amazing opportunity not only to familiarize ourselves with the methodology a bit better, and more thoroughly, but also to see it work in Bosnian circumstances. It might sound funny, but during our Auschwitz councils I had only one thing on my mind: this will never work in Bosnia. The fact that our mentality is pretty closed and that patriarchy, as such, dictates emotional distance, added to the fact that we haven’t had any formal nor systematically organized support on psychological post-war issues, pretty much determined my pessimism. Therefore, there is nobody happier than me to share impressions on our work and process! "Firstly, I must commend Jozo’s and Jared’s patience, which was needed to overcome all the mechanisms Bosnians use when somebody tries to open them and provide safe space for sharing their deep fears and emotions. As I anticipated, it took a bit more time to establish the container and include everyone equally. This experience has showed me that even though “my people” might seem tough and distanced, they can’t “escape” the power of council. In my opinion, all the singing, humor and hugging we tend to do in any serious situation are only defense mechanisms we use in order to cover our true selves. And council manages to defragment it, not to exclude it or make it forbidden but to infiltrate and include it in a completely reassuring manner. People truly heard each other, while overcoming the need to comment, to fix or to preach. They left council with much more faith in themselves and with the hope that its future use will help others to grieve, heal and laugh. "This experience has given me such immense knowledge and confidence. It answered a bunch of questions, gave a completely new perspective on the use of council in our work and helped overcome obstacles I imagined we’d have in the “logistical” sphere. Bringing it to Bosnia showed it in a different light, as something palpable, possible and real, so I’ve decided to commit to it and practice it with my family and friends — which resulted in my first “solo” council. Having in mind that I would never do anything without being sure that I could lead it till the end, and that I take my work perhaps too serious, the fact that I decided to do it shows how successful our training was.” (Ivana Gospođa Tapisirović) “The Council training which was organized in Sarajevo was a great experience for me. It was the second council training for me but the first time I really recognized and felt the power and beauty of this method. I am grateful I had the chance to be part of this great group and to be a student of a great teacher. Jared is a teacher who can feel and satisfy what the group needs, as well as being very experienced and flexible in his work.” (Boris Lovrinović) “With Council, our work at the Center For Peacebuilding got a whole new meaning. We strongly believe engaging Bosnians and Herzegovinians in Council will help us build stronger and more honest relationships among them. Council is the way for building peace, not only in BiH, but in the world. Experiencing Council opened many more opportunities for peace building in BiH. (Vahidin Omanović & Mevludin Rahmanović) “I had a wonderful first experience with the Council method. It was so good to have this opportunity to speak in front of people and have them all listen to you without their own opinion. After these days, I felt very open and powerful. I still have that feeling of openness and real improvement in my communication with my family, friends and colleagues from work. For me, this is a kind of new skill, to listen to others from the heart and to openly speak from the heart. The whole process for me was incredible. And a little bit mystical, because of the incredible openness in relation to others and the amazing connection. This connection, I realized, occurs when we hear and recognize ourselves in other people’s stories. I had a wonderful experience and I like these principles and methodology very much. And I’m feeling better because this has helped me to say some things that I realize I simply had to say at the moment. When I spoke from the heart, I felt relief and release, as if letting go of a burden that I carried. Council is definitely something I’ll try to do with my relatives, my colleagues and friends. (Helena Martinović) “I had the privilege and big honor to attend the training workshop on Council, arranged by my friends at CIM. I am just today finding some words which can describe my feelings and the change that I have experienced in myself… "The first day I was really confused and asked myself all the time: ‘What am I doing here???’ When I returned home, I found myself sitting with much passion and I spoke about all the work we did with my family, and started to try to convince them about how important Council was. I still don’t know what, but something happened with me this first day. Day by day, this wonderful and magical 4 days of training changed me, and it changed my attitude about others. The simple ‘rules’ push you to be careful with communication, to listen, to be open in front of people whom you are seeing for the first time. The facilitation was so nice and simple, charming, and in a subtle and easy way I was drawn into the process. I learned from what I heard and absorbed the words. I realized this workshop is different, you haven’t any paper, or material… it`s strange! But, step by step, this kind of thinking and communication with others starts to be part of you. Just today I saw things that are changing in me — in my every day communication with family, friends, on the job… When I found myself almost on the verge of aggravation with my family, because of the training, I realized that I was not really worried or angry. I really started to listen from my heart and talk from my heart. I sincerely believe that this is the true path to understanding and to happiness for all of us. I strongly believe that Council is a way of communication, and conflict resolution, that must be part of everyday life for all of us. I would be so happy if one day this method could be included in schools, obligatory for all. I’m richer as a result of this experience, I have new people in my life who I value. It was an amazing experience that I recommend to everyone. We will try to expand it! Thank you for the opportunity to be part of this.” (Mira Mehmedović) “When Jared asked me to assist him in Sarajevo I had a sense of excitement and deep resistance. Knowing my people, our recent history and its fallout, I presumed the workshop would be anything but easy. I also knew that I would have to dive into my old wounds, my personal hurt and be aware of the many trigger points that get activated when I am there. Day one was a true struggle. The level of mistrust and vigilance that has been build up is understandable, but I was surprised by the extent of the avoidance of intimacy and feelings which I observed. It took only a short while and couple of games before the atmosphere started to loosen up. As the days passed, we heard more and more stories how some who were involved in amazing peacemaking and reconciliation work have never been asked about their feelings, never been listened to or cared about. The joy and gratitude on their faces was beyond words. "BiH, as all ex-Yugoslavia, is a very patriarchal society, something I experienced so deeply years ago. When Jared decided to do “fish bowls” with men and women separated, the subject would come up over and over again. It was astonishing to hear one young man say how he feels frustrated since he loves cooking but his mom would not let him do so, for that was not a man’s job. Or to hear others revealing that they had been taught that a man is not supposed to express emotions, to be tender, to be soft. I could recall, with sadness, growing up a country where boys don’t cry; I, myself, never shed a tear in 22 years (probably the reason why I can’t hold back my tears today). It was wonderful to see how council could soften the hearts, the gender weight and the bias. "There were so many precious moments, stories, heart openings, laughter and joy, some I will remember for a long time: the woman whose heart came back to life, the woman whose husband, each night of the workshop, had to bear witness to her joy of deep transformation, and above all the last council we did in small groups of 4. By coincidence, mine was an all men’s group, each of us of different ethnicity. We did 2 rounds of deep sharing and then, as we reached the end of our time together, one man asked a favor: he wanted 4 of us to stand up and hug each other. So there we were 4 men in a circle holding each other in a deep hug for a long while. Not far from us, there sat a group of 4 women who, being deeply moved watching the scene, stood up and celebrated.” (Jozo Novak) A powerful new website highlights innovative programs at the forefront of prison reform. Our longtime funder, Kalliopeia Foundation, has created a new website called "Beyond Prison," that highlights the work that Center for Council is doing, along with that of our colleagues at ArtSpring, Insight Garden Program, Insight Out, Mind Body Awareness Project, Prison Mindfulness Institute, and Rehabilitation Through The Arts. We're thrilled to be engaged in this coalition of like-hearted organizations, promoting transformative work in prisons, communities and organizations, and we're grateful for the collaboration and mutual support of this powerful group of organizations. "Beyond Prison" explores innovative approaches to rehabilitation and offers a new vision of what prison could be. Take a moment to read the chapter on Center for Council's Inmate Council Program – as well as the compelling introductions to work that our colleagues and partners are innovating. It's an honor to be collaborating with such powerful allies and exciting to be recognized and celebrated in this moment of innovation. Read the powerful article now. A critical challenge for social justice organizations as you advocate for positive social change is to listen deeply to the communities in which you work. Recognizing your mandate to voice the needs of the populations that you serve, your team will serve most effectively by developing the capacity to listen deeply and understand the context and history of your communities. At Center for Council, we believe that when a staff participates in Council, an opportunity emerges for employees and peers to develop greater rapport, trust and a deeper sense of community. Your work is so important and impactful that we are privileged to join you in building into your team to create a deeper resilience and bond as the antidote to the burnout so common is the social justice field.
We are so excited to integrate the Council practice into your organizations to create a healthier and more nurturing workplace, fostering greater cooperation, motivation and creativity that then supports innovation, increased productivity and better decision-making. Funded in partnership by the Angell Foundation and the JIB Fund, Center for Council is excited and privileged to announce the Social Justice Council Project recipients for 2015-16:
These 20 amazing non-profits will receive training and professional development in the practice of council, to support their important work and their connections within their organizations and with their communities. And we gratefully acknowledge the pilot cohort of this innovative project: 13 organizations that participated in our first iteration of the SJCP, in 2013-14; you can learn more about the program here. Do you want to bring Council to your organization? Explore our website or contact us now. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more updates and news! This article was originally published by ZCLA.org by Jared Seide In a time of unprecedented challenges to economies, socio-political structures, ecological systems, anxiety is widespread and suffering is deep. How is it possible to provide effective interventions to individuals, and communities, rather than the preconceived notions of “experts.” How do we bear witness to the unique characteristics of the situation, rather than inflict external theories which we presume will fix things? For me, Council provides a dynamic and generative space for easing suffering, interconnecting, and flourishing together. I’m so grateful to have found a path that enables me to support this work in the world. Throughout my life, I’ve been captivated by storytelling. As a teen, I was a semi-professional actor and, after Brown University and a variety of drama schools, was led into directing and producing film. Some years into a Hollywood career, I was introduced to an innovative program unfolding at my daughter’s elementary school. After the Rodney King riots, the school was rife with racial tension, frustration and conflict. I watched as the practice of Council was introduced to the students and to the greater school community, and I observed a radical transformation of the campus into an empathic, cohesive community of stakeholders. The school community became engaged and unified It was clear to me that the Council program had precipitated this shift and was leading to a deeper sense of social connectedness through the simple act of sharing our stories. The impact on the children and their engagement at school was similarly transformative and, on a personal level, I believe Council inspired my daughter to find her witnessing and participating in that process changed my life. I became a student of the Council process and began to devote more of my time and energy to the work. I studied the practice intensely and was mentored by Jack Zimmerman, author of "The Way of Council," with Virginia Coyle. I became a practitioner and then a trainer, at a time when Council programs were expanding rapidly in Southern California schools, and found myself training teachers and coordinating school-based Council programs. As Council’s popularity grew, and the necessity of interfacing with systems beyond schools became apparent (government, corrections, veterans affairs, corporations, health care), we came to recognize the need for an outward-facing organization that could collaborate with these systems. In 2013, Center for Council was launched as an independent organization, fiscally sponsored by Community Partners. As director of the Center for Council, I have been responsible for developing and supporting Council trainings and programs locally, and throughout the world, in prisons, hospitals, community and environmental groups, social-profit organizations, social service agencies, and businesses. By sitting in quiet and contemplative sharing, Council participants report that they feel “more heard and seen” by peers, co-workers, families and friends. They discover a greater sense of community and empathy for those around them, as well as an increased sense of self-esteem and empowerment. They report that they find their voice, discover what truly matters, and take a stand for themselves, their values and their dreams. I have found Council to be a strikingly effective tool for developing and strengthening interconnectedness through storytelling, as it offers experiences that are engaging, empathic and dramatic – experiences I’d hoped to find working with theatre and film. When trained in this practice and these tenets, the Council facilitator can offer a powerful upaya to individuals who are suffering and a way to celebrate our commonalities and interconnection. Working with the Zen Peacemaker Order has been dynamic, provocative and deeply nourishing. It is extraordinary and intense to step into a Council after bearing witness to the Childrens’ Barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau, or the horrific remains of the massacre at the church at Ntarama, outside Kigali. The dehumanizing realities of prison life in California are also profoundly challenging to face. And when we listen completely to what is manifesting in our hearts, and in the hearts of those with whom we sit in Council, we become more intimate with the situation at hand. The action that arises from entering into a situation with not-knowing and bearing witness is necessarily aligned with love and care; when we choose not to turn away, but we allow ourselves to care and act, we manifest compassionate action, we “do good for others.” As Roshi Bernie suggests, doing good in the world must be grounded in rigorous practice, clarity of vision, and generosity of heart. This is deeply aligned with the practice of Council and is the underlying essence of Council’s intentions to “listen and speak from the heart.” In January of 2013, I was asked to lead a five-day Council training workshop in Kigali for a group of Rwandan peace-workers participating in the ZPO Rwandan Bearing Witness Retreat and committed to healing their country, post-genocide. The training was a powerful inquiry into deeper intimacy with our wounds, an experiential exploration of the nature of healing, and a witnessing and celebration of the emergence of a practice intended to foster community resilience. This group organized, practiced together, and brought Council into their lives, families and communities, gaining recognition as the “Rwandan Center for Council,” a certified, official Rwandan NGO. Similar to the prison system in California, Rwandan prisons are overburdened and rehabilitation services are stressed beyond their capability. The Rwanda Council Program provides services to genocidaires reaching the end of their incarceration, as well as to the communities to which they will return. The program interacts with civil society to support successful reintegration of former prisoners. The goal is to promote practices that will help both offenders and their victims heal from their individual and collective traumas while developing resiliency. The Council program is grounded in the understanding that the most effective intervention begins with an open space, a pause, the opportunity to be with things as they are now, not with an ideology or a “cure” or a sense of knowing. The overall intent is to spur a more compassionate and restorative system of justice that supports rehabilitation for the world’s incarcerated offenders. Closer to home, Council programs in California correctional facilities have resulted in tangible and meaningful shifts in behavior in prison yards, including collaboration between ethnic groups, inmates taking steps to be accountable for their behavior and seeking forgiveness, as well as improved regulation of impulsive and reactive communication styles, which has led to reduced incidents of violence. These results have been quite striking, and the Center for Council has received support to broaden its Inmate Council Program to include twelve maximum-security prisons in California. One of the ripples of this program has been an invitation to offer Council-based programs to correctional officers, designed to shift the culture from stress, burnout, denial, and untreated trauma to more healthy self-management and self-care, emotionally and socially intelligent communication, effective stress and conflict management, and overall staff wellness and safety. While the focus is different for staff and inmates, Council-based programs address the dehumanizing that impacts all who interact with dysfunctional systems – including, but not limited to, corrections. Council programs are providing skillful means of fostering wellness and resilience on the individual, community and systemic level. The Center for Council envisions a world in which every voice is heard, no one is invisible, and all have the opportunity to connect to community. CP: How do you personally define the “Local Peace Economy?” JS: I think there are some profound “fundamentals” that are shifting – that must shift – in order for our culture and our world to be sustainable. The immense imbalance amongst us in resources and access has created unhealthy and corrosive conditions for a great many… and systems seem to be breaking apart under the strain. Any read of political, economic, health-care, educational, correctional systems reveals much to be concerned about. And it feels to me that underneath it all is a fundamental, fear-based sense of separation. It is simply impossible and unbearable to continue to pretend that we are not deeply interconnected. The story of the “other” is unsupportable. As we pay attention, we see that what happens to you, impacts me; what emerges in me is about all of us. And in our fast-paced lives, driven by all these systems and efficiencies, it sometimes takes a backward step - a slowing down - to pay attention. Systems that dehumanize in the service of efficiency are unsustainable. I see a great need to bear witness, lean in, grieve, celebrate and embody the re-humanizing evolution at hand. Many of us are engaging in practices that enable us to embody and enact this inter-being – and I am sensing that this shift is finally mobilizing broad-based support from across the cultural and political spectrum. Molly Rowan Leach of Restorative Justice On The Rise interviews Center for Council Director Jared Seide about the practice of Council and how it sets the stage for restorative justice interventions, establishing a sense of community and a ground for restoring relationships after harm is done. Hear about the history of Center for Council and some of the new arenas throughout the justice system where Council practice is emerging. Listen here:
Center for Council offered a Council training last weekend in Paris for residents and staff of the Salvation Army women shelter damaged by last year's terrorist attacks and coping with the influx of refuges to this vibrant neighborhood. The Center for Council Paris training workshop included a wide range of participants: homeless folks, Buddhist practitioners, Franciscan brothers, social workers and other concerned and compassionate citizens.
Center for Council's Jared Seide returned from two weeks in Rwanda, where a partnership was initiated with our friends at Rwanda Center for Council -- recently recognized by the Rwandan Governance Board as an official NGO -- and the Association of Rwandese Trauma Counselors (ARCT-Ruhuka). Using our council-based program model, developed in California prisons, and in collaboration with the Rwanda Correctional Service, this project will introduce and support council practice inside the Rwandan prisons — in addition to providing support and coaching to a growing network of community-based organizations throughout Rwandan civil society. With the imminent release of over 20,000 former genocide perpetrators into communities where unspeakable crimes were committed, the Rwandan government and its people seem eager to embrace a model for deepening community resilience and affirming shared values. The resonance of council (or “Peace Circle”) with indigenous Rwandan traditions like ibitaramo is striking and we are thrilled to be partnering with local Rwandan peace workers in supporting the emergence of a program and a practice that serves this critical moment. This Fall, The Rockefeller Foundation will host a delegation from California (including Inspector General Robert Barton and several others) and a delegation from Rwanda (including high-level government officials and NGO heads) in Bellagio, Italy, for three days, to look at what is working so well in these council-based prison/reentry programs, where the challenges may be, how to measure results and how to scale to the systems in California and Rwanda and, more broadly, to explore how this model may address the challenges faced by fractured communities around the world and foster reconciliation and resilience in a variety of contexts. The intention of this work is to promote healing and principled behavior that can be framed and implemented in reentry contexts to address an intractable and growing problem for cities and communities—one that interferes with economic development, employability and peaceful coexistence. The overarching vision is to spur a more compassionate and restorative system of justice that supports rehabilitation for the world’s incarcerated offenders. The goal is to promote practices that will help both offenders and their victims—individuals and communities—to heal from their individual and collective traumas while developing resiliency. We believe the model being piloted in Rwanda and California is applicable to fractured communities around the world. This conference will be facilitated by renown innovator and strategist Cheryl Heller and will help strengthen the California-Rwanda partnership, explore programmatic and implementation needs and vision strategy moving forward for this and other developing council-based programs. We are honored and excited to co-lead this effort, eager to share the emerging story and to continue to work with what develops from this important dialogue. In October of 2013, Center for Council and Stories Matter Media, with the support of Cal Humanities "Community Stories Project," collaborated on a film project documenting the extraordinary Inmate Council Progam unfolding in Salinas Valley State Prison. Reporter Kenneth Miller followed the film crew into Salinas Valley State Prison and wrote the following article on the powerful weekend. Miller reports, "An aura of earnest spirituality suffuses the practice, but there’s no religious content. Nor is there a specific therapeutic agenda. “Council doesn’t start with the assumption that something’s wrong with you,” says retired warden David Winett, a longtime supporter. In corrections, he observes, the custom is to tell inmates, “What you need is a good talking-to.” Council’s core belief, Winett says, is that what everyone needs is “a good listening-to.” By hearing others deeply, the theory goes, people learn compassion; by being heard, they learn to better understand themselves. "When we change ourselves, we change the people around us." - Therapist Marie-Josee Ukeye, Butare, Rwanda It takes unimaginable will and courage to move ahead after trauma. For many of the women of Butare, Rwanda, there has been much to survive. Many of those who lived through the genocide lost family, friends and children. Countless numbers were victims of rape; some went on to raise the children born of those rapes, and many live with HIV. Therapist Marie-Josee Ukeye has been using the practice of Council for the past 2 years in her work with the courageous women of Butare. She will be one of the participants of the training being held by Center for Council at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Council Trainer Siri Gunnarson reflects on visiting the Murambi memorial site, where 50,000 Tutsis were killed in one morning in 1994:
"We saw the mass graves and hundreds of preserved bodies. Our guide asked if we were doing some kind of yoga, noticing how we entered each room in silent awareness. How to be fully present with this history? ...Here I am, looking at room after room of bodies contorted with fear, bullet holes and machete wounds." She quotes Bernie Glassman: "In the Zen Peacekeeper Order, we stress bearing witness to the wholeness of life, to every aspect of the situation that arises. It means being each and every element of this situation." Center for Council is honored to be partnered with Zen Peacekeepers, the Rwandan National Commission on Reconciliation, and local NGOs, bringing the practice of Council and of bearing witness to this community. "Within one year, a third of those released from prison are back inside. Within three years, two-thirds have returned to prison. To me that says more about the failure of prisons, parole supervision, and reentry programs than it does about the failure of individuals." -Eddie Ellis, formerly incarcerated founder of the Center for NuLeadership, quoted in The Sun, July 2013 While opinions abound on how to best address the issue of recidivism in our prison system, consensus is growing that we cannot continue with the way things have been. California has one of the highest rates of recidivism in the nation, an issue that has led to Attorney General Kamala Harris announcing a new state initiative, the Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-Entry, aimed at identifying the best ways to reduce those numbers. The practice of Council addresses some of the Criminogenic Factors identified as key to reducing recidivism. Center for Council has initiated a pilot program, currently underway at Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP) in Soledad, California, to train inmates in Council. Those participants will then lead other inmates in the practice as many prepare to reenter society. A larger initiative is currently in development, which will expand the program being piloted at SVSP to other prisons and increase our community-based network of partners offering Council groups to the formerly incarcerated in the neighborhoods to which they will be returning. The California Office of the Inspector General released a highly critical report late last week on the deeply dysfunctional culture at High Desert State Prison. Included in the OIG's "Findings and Recommendations," among other efforts to shift the culture for officers and inmates, is implementation of Center for Council's proposal, in partnership with Center for Mindfulness on Corrections, for a council-based wellness and resiliency program for Correctional Officers. Read the full report here "There are such extraordinary moments emerging in many of these compassion-based programs in prisons and communities. In this season of abundance and thanksgiving, I am reminded of an amazing and moving council I got to participate in at Lancaster State Prison with a group of inmates who had such incredible stories about food. One shared that he has spent decades wondering about pomegranates... so curious about their taste and feel, and their prevalence in mythology and poetry, and his longing to know a pomegranate, and his realization that a sentence of "life without the chance of parole" meant he's probably never get to taste one. "That night, as I walked past a large stack of them at Whole Foods, I felt my heart race. Was it mine to sneak one in next time? Should I petition the authorities to allow it? Or take a picture? Or maybe just to bear witness to the longing and so deeply appreciate my life and the profound teaching these incarcerated elders have for all of us about memory, meaning, longing, grief and renewal...?
"This is such meaningful, sacred work and there is so much of value to be done to integrate folks who are for the most part invisible behind so many concrete walls. These are sons and daughters, in many cases moms and dads, poets and athletes, artists and nerds, violent bullies and kindhearted friends. Many have been there for decades - some are far different men from the knuckleheads who did something stupid years ago. And most of us just chose not to think about it. I think how we regard and make sense of all this says so much about who we are. Sharing these stories creates such intimacy with the suffering, the longing, the compassion, the humanity of our fellow community members. "These stories open our hearts and shift the way we view the system. When we bear witness to these stories we are changed, profoundly. We get to really feel the impact of a dysfunctional system that has real consequence on real people. And it's about all of us..." "We can't heal ourselves or other people, unless we bear witness." -Bernie Glassman Center for Council is part of an extraordinary movement that is bringing reconciliation and healing to the sites of some of the worst atrocities of our time. This April will mark twenty years since the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda, in which over one million people were killed. Women who were victims of the mass rape used as a tool for war, now live with and care for the children born of those rapes, and many were also left with HIV. And yet, despite the unfathomable capacity for human cruelty, we see also the limitless capacity for forgiveness. In the community of Butare, Rwanda, a courageous group of women is working to move beyond the trauma, transform their suffering, and have together formed a successful farming cooperative providing abundant fresh vegetables, consistent income and deep relationships.
Center for Council is partnering with the Rwandan National Commission on Reconciliation, Zen Peacekeepers and local NGOs in training local organizations to continue the healing process through Council-based community programs. Here, Center for Council Director Jared Seide and Certified Trainer Siri Gunnarson with some of the extraordinary women of Butare. |
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