Beyond Diversity 101 intends healing transformation. We provide frameworks, offer practices, and hold a space for growing skills to de-structure systems of oppression and raise up liberation. Participants are offered pathways to move beyond the guilt-blame cycle toward radical truth-telling, co-responsibility, and activating joy & justice!

Participants will:

• Recognize and remove blocks that hold you back as a facilitator, artist, leader, healer, teacher, or organizer;
• Articulate and break patterns of domination/power-over/oppression;
• Practice being a courageous and heart-centered transformer;
• Work within a community of learners and justice workers with the potential for ongoing support;
• Increase the ability to discern, speak, and activate a vision of liberation;
• Recognize how our spiritual lives relate to our social justice work;
• Develop applications for continuing work at home.

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Leaders

Niyonu D. Spann designed and facilitated the first BD101 Intensive in 1999. She brings over 30 years as an organization development practitioner with a current focus on root-level transformation. She is leading an effort to found a high school, Academy for Peace & Liberation Education, a calling that came to her while she served as Dean at Pendle Hill. Niyonu is also a trained meditation teacher and singer-songwriter. In 2021, Niyonu released her second solo album, Spirit Fuel.

Lisa Graustein brings over 25 years of experience as an out teacher, facilitator, and activist. She holds an MEd in racial justice education and works with schools and nonprofits throughout the northeast. A lifelong Universalist Quaker, Lisa is part of founding a new Friends meeting, Three Rivers Meeting, grounded in Queer Christian watershed discipleship and liberation theology. A mom and artist, Lisa lives on unceded Neponset Band of the Massachusetts land with her teenaged son. Lisa first attended BD101 in 2003 at Pendle Hill and came back every year, eventually becoming a co-facilitator.

All scholarship funds for this program have already been awarded. Please reach out to registration@pendlehill.org with additional questions.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill. Please make sure to review our health and safety expectations at https://pendlehill.org/stay/covid-19-information/.