This is one of a series of posts profiling a few of the 100+ hours of Mindcamp programs you can attend this summer. For more on this and other programs, go to: Mindcamp Sessions.
Check Your Privilege
Facilitating with an awareness of who’s in the room
© sangoiri / 123RF Stock Photo
Social, emotional, and cultural barriers can lock useful perspectives out of the conversation. People who easily drive the conversation often benefit from unnamed privileges — education and language — as well as more obvious ones like race and gender.
Successful facilitation requires creating open spaces that encourage and embrace new voices. This workshop will provide you with the insights and tools to go beyond tokenism, develop trust, and welcome all your participants as collaborators in co-creating the future.
The Skinny: 3 things you will get from this session
- A better sense of the privileges you carry with you in your work and life
- A process for inviting diverse voices into a creative process
- Strategies for making a safer, more productively creative space
Denise Pinto is a writer, urbanist, and creative strategist. She has delivered keynote lectures in Vienna, Hong Kong, and Chicago on the importance of connected communities. She is the recipient of a Medal of Excellence from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and in 2016, she was named a Vital Person by the Toronto Foundation. She sits on several non-profit boards and is working on her first novel.
Born and raised in Toronto, Robert Wakulat developed an appreciation for the challenges facing small businesses by packaging nails and selling fertilizer in his father’s hardware store. He has taught English in Japan and interned with Journalists for Human Rights in Ghana. He now practices law in the city of his roots and enjoys helping entrepreneurs, community groups and individuals become active participants in the province’s emerging social enterprise sector.