• Training of movement trainers
• Skills trainings (e.g. anti-oppression, strategy, direct action)
• Curriculum writing
• Consulting

Training movement trainers

In 2004, Equal Justice USA sent their director, Shari Silberstein, to our 17-day training of trainers not knowing that a journey would begin. For Shari, the training was an epiphany and the skills learned were invaluable, not just to her training but as an activist. She was organizing a major training upgrade for her staff and asked Training for Change to co-facilitate with her. Training for Change agreed and helped provide a dynamite training.

Since then, she has sent numerous staff through that 17-day training of trainers, to help increase their skills as trainers. And Training for Change has periodically coached staff on future major training programs. But now Equal Justice USA holds the skills of training and is able to carry out its own training trainer programs.

This is what we call the ripple effect. We don't want to train trainers to build our organization; we train them so that they can go out and train other activists. That's our contribution to social change.

Our approach to training is based on popular education and supportive of activist values, but we have consciously built on it for years, adding from other modalities and influences.

So while we are supportive of activists, we also challenge them. We refuse, for example, to treat anti-oppression as a "session" in a workshop. Instead we teach trainers how to see it as a core that shows up at every level of facilitation (design, exercises used, etc).

Whether you have been doing training for decades, or just starting, we can guarantee that you will find value in our training of trainers, getting pushed to the edge of your own learning.

We have trained trainers with Equal Justice/USA, Greenpeace, The Ruckus Society, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Delaware County Wage Peace and Justice, Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, Campus Progress and those are just a handful from North America. We have trained trainers in South Korea, South Africa, Thailand, Italy, Russia, Indonesia, India, and over a dozen countries.

Want us to help train your trainers? Then please contact us.

Skills trainings

A group of citizens needed direct action training before a high-risk sit-in. Swarthmore College students needed more skills in handling anti-oppression issues. Casino-Free Philadelphia needed a blockades training in preparation for its actions. Students in rural PA at Muhlenberg College needed exposure to nonviolent action. To name a few.

In each case, they turned to Training for Change. They knew we could offer reliably high-quality training, at a price to match their needs, backed by skilled trainers and an approach that would make sure people emerged with the needed skills.

Our trainers know their material and can readily develop skills trainings to match the particular needs of your group. Our areas of training include:

• training trainers (see training movement trainers)
• anti-oppression, including on classism, whites confronting racism, and workshops for African-Americans on internalized oppression
• tactics and strategy
• nonviolent direct action
• organization and movement strategic planning
• theory of nonviolence/social change

We have led trainings for Swarthmore College, Muhlenberg College, Casino-Free Philadelphia, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, The Change Agency among the few hundreds of trainings we have led.

Want us to lead training for your group? Then please request a workshop.

Curriculum writing

Turn Your Back on Bush wanted to support trainings across the country for their national direct action. They knew we knew direct action and we knew training. And they knew we could produce it quickly with only a little bit of guidance. So they hired us to develop a fifteen-page direct action training manual -- used by their people across the country.

Or maybe your needs our bigger.

When Nonviolent Peaceforce was gearing up, it needed a massive training program -- an 18-day training program. Nonviolent Peaceforce's mission was unique, with a long-term goal of creating large peace teams to provide nonviolent intervention and protection in high-risk parts of the world -- keeping social activists alive to do their work.

Training for Change carried out a two-year research project to help Nonviolent Peaceforce establish core proficiencies. In the end, we produced for them a 630-page training manual that has become a standard in the field and is used in Zimbabwe, US, Canada, Poland, South Korea, Japan, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and more.

In short, we love writing action training manuals. And we strive to make ourselves affordable and available for supporting action training curricula.

We will work with your group to identify the core skills and information to be transfered. Then we develop new training tools and develop a customized training program just for your group. We'll help you test it and revise it, too -- whether it's a short project, or a much larger one!

Our goal is to make a manual that will be used -- so we'll provide the resources to support and coach trainers to take it from pieces of paper to a live, used, and growing manual.

We have worked on curricula with Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Center for Progressive Leadership, Nonviolent Peaceforce, American Friends Service Committee, The Ruckus Society, Citizens Action Coalition, Casino-Free Philadelphia, Turn Your Back on Bush, Advocating for Change Together and more.

Want to hire us to help you write a training curriculum? Then please contact us.

Consulting

When ADAPT called us up they picked us because they knew we knew activism. ADAPT is a fierce, direct action disability rights group. Their massive actions are largely responsible for passing the American Disability Act (ADA). Yet when their leadership was transitioning, they wanted someone who would respect their particular culture, support their direct action profile, and not need to be brought "up-to-speed" on their politics. Training for Change was for them -- and has helped them make a shift in their

We want activist groups to thrive, and get the quality of support that big corporations get but without the values sacrifice that most consultants brings -- or without the massive cost, too.

We are activists. And we will work with you to support your activist goals. Plus, because we believe in empowerment, our interest is in handing off skills to your organization, so that in the future you don't need us.

Primarily our consulting work is in the areas of:

• leadership and organizational development
• anti-oppression and diversity work
• strategy development and coaching
• increasing training infrastructure (see training movement trainers)

We have provided consulting services with Jobs with Justice, Service Employees International Union (statewide groups), ADAPT, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Genocide Intervention Fund (now Genocide Intervention Network), Veterans for Peace and many more.

Want to learn more if we would be a good match consulting with your organization? Then please contact us.

• Printer-friendly version
• Send to friend
• PDF version