Immersion and Leadership Training, LAThe 2011 Bare Witness Immersion and Leadership Training will focus on urban youth in Los Angeles. California has one of the highest incarceration and gang membership rates in America. Youth in South Los Angeles are 1.6 times as likely as kids in other neighborhoods to face arrest and incarceration, according to a 2006 report by the Los Angeles County Children’s Planning Council. Nearly one in three children in Inglewood and surrounding South L.A. neighborhoods live in poverty. There are thousands of young people born into families and communities that confront issues of crime, poverty, and violence on a consistent basis. This is a critical time for the Los Angeles community, and resources for healing are needed to replace a punitive system that can perpetuate the patterns of trauma that are at the root of the cycle of crime and incarceration. Many of the dynamics in Los Angeles are mirrored in some way or another in other urban and suburban settings in America and beyond. Mission of the Bare Witness Immersion and Leadership Training, Los AngelesWe want to build local leaders. Participants in this immersion are being given an embodied heartfelt education and experience that we hope they will then take back into their local community. By exploring some of the issues in Los Angeles we hope to engage you in a conscious process of inquiry into marginalized communities that is mutual and respectful. You will work with local leaders to learn about the various approaches and programs that have been effective in empowering youth, and you will get to bare witness to others as well as yourself in this process. |
