 DISCOVERY |  POWER |  ENCOURAGEMENT |
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 BELOVED COMMUNITY |  GROWTH |  CONSCIOUS CO-CREATION |
IN PRACTICE
We, at 4 Circles Beyond are committed to BEING the TRANSFORMERS that we and our fellow humans are desperately yearning for. Whether facilitating BD101 Intensives, supporting youth empowerment through Peace, Liberation & the Arts (PL&A) or working to build the Academy for Peace & Liberation Education we are about radical truth-telling, radical love, and inside/outside transformation.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
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Radical Truth-telling: We expose and dispel myths of white supremacy and of the inferiority of people of color and the poor.
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Heart-centered Action: “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and Justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” MLK
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Center those most impacted by injustice - those dis-acknowledged and targeted by lies of inferiority, those systematically excluded from opportunities to create toward their own well-being.
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Artistic Expression: Tapping in, creating, and offering art helps us to re-member who we are – divine co-creators. Liberation: Renewing the vitality of life- mentally, physically, and spiritually.
VISION
Our community acts from knowing and honoring the individual and collective ability to imagine, design, build, and sustain loving and healthy families and communities.
We, community people, must determine the supporting economic, governing, healing, and spiritual systems that assure wholistic circulation throughout.
KEY OBJECTIVES
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To promote peace and well-being by de-structuring systems of domination and assuring social, economic, racial and environmental justice.
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To train emerging and established leaders to build strong, heart-centered, and community-responsive programs. To provide youth and adult changemakers with tools and practices for the well-being of body, mind, and spirit.
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To provide a method of high school education grounded in liberation and wholeness; Liberation Education that increases students’ capacity and access to contribute to their community and the larger society.
PROGRAMS
Beyond Diversity 101 breaks from the vicious cycle of guilt, blame and victimhood, both in its curriculum and underlying philosophy. BD101 participants, regardless of background, are asked to engage with models that challenge traditional notions of how oppression operates. Workshop participants learn to identify, then to begin dismantling, the subtle ways in which apparent victims and apparent oppressors can both perpetuate the classist, sexist, racist and homophobic status quo.
In addition to the original Intensive, BD101 Basic launched in 1999, BD101 has continued to develop and offer a variety of multi-day intensive workshop experiences including BD101 RACE, BD101 YOUTH, and BD101-Remember, Resist, Renew.
PEACE, LIBERATION & THE ARTS SUMMER CAMP
The Peace, Liberation & The Arts (PL&A) Summer Camp provides a multi-week experience for youth, ages 13 - 18. In order to foster peace and liberation for Chester youth, we must address at least three circles – the personal, the family and the larger community. PL&A Summer Camps include goals that seek to impact each of these important circles of influence. We recognize that peace making is an inside to outside job and that building strong young activators of liberation requires an inner strength and balance that must be nurtured. We must also acknowledge and provide education about the systems of oppression and discrimination that hold communities like Chester in cycles of poverty and violence.
Therefore, our approach provides tools for inner reflection, historical and current events education, skill-building, artistic expression and opportunities to learn and serve through cultural exchange.
The Academy for Peace & Liberation Education is the newest initiative of 4 Circles Beyond. The AP&LE will be a high school with a concentration in liberation, peace, and transformational excellence.
PL&A Summer Interns conducted a Listening Project to gauge community support and guidance for creating the Academy (High School) in Chester. Working under the guidance of 4CB staff the 2018 Interns interviewed community members gathering invaluable perspectives on what it would mean to offer a high school education based in liberation.
CONTACT US
"Help us to heal so we can be a strong foundation where our children can heal, so they can be a strong foundation where our grandchildren stand upon a strong foundation, in a peaceful world."
from ‘Healing’ – as performed by Tribe 1
written by Niyonu Spann, President of 4CB
