"…like coming home to Sunday dinner." -- African American woman describing Training for Change workshops.

"I'm feeling like this is a youth workshop, even though most people here are older than me!" - European American youth activist in the global justice movement.

"We keep inviting you back to our country because the way you do your training shows your deep respect for us." - Thai activist and writer

EXTENDING THE REACH

2004 Training for Change Report

Any new training organization starts wherever it starts - in whatever historical niche the combination of creativity and energy shows up. In 1992 Training for Change was launched by George Lakey and Barbara Smith from a niche defined by the U.S. civil rights and peace movements of the 'sixties, environmentalism and humanistic psychology of the 'seventies, coalition-building and diversity-consciousness of the 'eighties. The test for all trainers is to keep going beyond the limitations of our origins, and work in ways that welcome larger diversities and groups while challenging them in turn to go beyond their own limits.

600 workshops and 13,000 participants later TfC continues to extend its reach, not in budget or staff, but in refining what it can offer so that more and more kinds of people can grow on a deeper level. Quality training in turn extends the ripple effect of our work.

In 2004 two trips to Africa and a trip to Russia extended our understanding of non-imperialistic cross-cultural training. More work among TfC trainers on transgender and youth issues deepened our sensitivities. Creating the new workshop for African Americans working on racism brought a fresh approach previously unavailable in the U.S. Building the Strategy Project in the context of the 2004 election made new insights available for activists in 2005 and beyond.

THE STRATEGY PROJECT

Following on TfC's successful push to create a new level of training for third party nonviolent intervention (published as "Opening Space for Democracy"), we put our attention to another gap in the field of activism: democratic strategizing. The passions of 2004 showed how difficult it can be for activists to do the clear, longer-run thinking that is grounded and results in consistent gains over time. Although there is plenty of wisdom available in the ranks of activists, it is rarely collected and focused so that sustainable plans emerge.

Led by Program Director Daniel Hunter, the project gathered strategy tools from a variety of places including the worlds of business and the military. Aided by a diverse activist brain trust, TfC staff identified those tools which were effective, suitable to activist cultures, and democratic. After seven lab sessions plus seven try-outs from one coast to the other, we reached the end of 2004 ready to write a strategy manual, which we expect to publish in 2005. You can get an advance peak at some of the tools through www.TrainingforChange.org. Now available to bring to your community: the model workshop of the Strategy Project: "Strategy is Possible."

TRAINING IN AFRICA AND RUSSIA

In war-torn Sierra Leone Daniel Hunter and Dan Buttry led a three-day workshop for sixty leaders. The focus was empowerment through nonviolent action. The trainers confronted dependency, bred by continuing insecurity and a cash economy propped up by the United Nations and large international non-governmental organizations. The trainers used their own outsider-ness to advantage, holding the mirror up to ways the participants tried to be dependent on the trainers. Daniel and Dan then supported the participants to stand on their own feet and look to each other for support. In that way the participants explored "people power" on more than one level, increasing its relevance to their situation. "A transforming experience both for me and my co-participants," was the comment of the head of the Baptist Seminary which hosted the training.

Daniel Hunter also spent time in Ghana networking with the West African Network of Peacebuilding and George Lakey networked in Zimbabwe at the invitation of the Zimbabwe Institute for Cultural Affairs. As a result of those visits Gerald Gomani (Zimbabwe) and George Lakey will lead in 2005 an African workshop which will teach trainers the specialized skills of training for third party nonviolent intervention. (See "Opening Space for Democracy" at www.TrainingforChange.org.)

The Youth Movement for Human Rights in Russia brought their network to the Central Russian city of Voronezh in September to work with George Lakey on solidarity, strategy, and standing up to the increasingly authoritarian trends of their government. On the same trip George also flew to St. Petersburg to lead an advanced training of trainers for Inter-Training, the network of consultants and trainers which serves grassroots and nonprofit groups in the former Soviet Union. Nearly 40 trainers gathered from eleven time zones and several countries for the intensive training. George stayed on to assist the board of directors of Inter-Training.

Repeatedly in West and Central Africa, among Russian youth and among a range of trainers across the former Soviet Union, Hunter and Lakey engaged the issues of culture and dominance. Not for a minute do we believe that our goodwill allows U.S.-based trainers to "transcend" issues of dominance. For U.S.-based trainers, those issues must come up and be worked with as teachable moments. People from the U.S. get to work on the arrogance that surrounds our very presence. People in other countries also get to work on the dominance issues that operate within their own cultures and within themselves. The experience of our trainers (65 trips to 19 different countries) has built a way of facilitating which liberates through engagement with the toughest differences. (More detailed international reports on www.TrainingforChange.org.)

DIRECT EDUCATION - AN EVOLUTION OF POPULAR EDUCATION

Our Training Associates have coined a new term for TfC's evolving theory and practice: direct education. Although still rooted in the liberatory pedagogy of Paolo Friere, direct education adds anti-oppression interventions, group dynamics, and transformational work in an integrated way so that more and more people who are traditionally marginalized in education find themselves respected and supported in TfC's workshops. TfC trainers were slow to realize the extent of this evolution. Participants' feedback awakened us to it, and also what we heard from the users of our newly-invented tools and curricula. George Lakey has begun a new book on empowering pedagogy which includes experience from Training Associates as the group clarifies the approach of direct education.

SUCCESSFUL PROGRAMS CONTINUE

The 60 workshops given in 2004 served over 1000 participants. 23% of participants in mixed U.S. workshops were of color. The Super-T, the seventeen-day training of trainers given in June for the ninth time, attracted five Naga leaders as well as participants from other countries and ethnicities. The Whites Confronting Racism series continues with new leadership: Sarah Halley and Molly McClure. The Class Matters workshop continues and was brought to California by the Sierra Club. Organization development workshops served groups as various as the School of the Americas Watch, Widener University, and the Philadelphia Coalition for Prison Health Care. In summary, the topics of the workshops given in 2004 were: strategy, 14; diversity, 12; training of trainers, 11; nonviolent struggle, 10; organizational development, 9; other, 4.

PUBLICATIONS AND WEBSITE

The newly-redesigned website includes more training tools than ever as well as articles and field reports. Additional publications include George Lakey's "Strategizing for a Living Revolution" in David Solnit (ed.) Globalize Liberation, " (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2004). Parts of the 600pp curriculum Opening Space for Democracy are beginning to be translated into German and Spanish; other TfC publications are now available in Arabic, Italian, Japanese, and Thai. The expanding publications program is another way that TfC is extending the reach.

FINANCIAL PICTURE

2004 income was $185,000 and expenses $180,000. Workshop fees were 15% and consulting fees 10% of the total income. Foundations and organizations gave 34%. The largest single income source, 36% or $66,000, came from individuals who realize that their support is necessary to extend the reach at this critical time for the world. To all contributors and volunteers we send heartfelt thanks!