UBUNTU Research & Evaluation and BUILD Health will facilitate several sessions for ages 26 and up on various aspects of the “beloved community.” The purpose is to develop shared language and foster critical conversations around community engagement. Topics include:
- Radical Openness: Involves purposefully and actively questioning one’s biases, preconceptions, and/or habitual response tendencies to build community.
- Love: View as action and the means by which we will gain collective liberation.
- Seeking Reconciliation: Moving beyond embracing conflict to looking for opportunities to resolve conflict that has existed.
- Forgiveness: Accepting acts of accountability and restoration after someone has caused you harm.
- Struggle with Fear: Fear separates us, immobilizes. Beloved community calls us to face our fears as obstacles of understanding and growth.
- Moving Towards Liberation: Building community requires intentional acts of inclusion and equity for all.
- Redeeming Qualities: In order to embrace conflict and seek reconciliation, one must believe that their neighbors or those they are in conflict with are worthy to be in community with.
- Embracing Conflict: There will always be conflict, but it is how we lean into the conflict and learn from it that determines the strength and longevity of the community.
- Equanimity: Maintaining a calm mind when being challenged with building a beloved community.
This series is sponsored by Sherman Park Community Association, Ascension, United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County, and the City of Milwaukee Office of Violence Prevention.