Community Listening Circle Workshop:
Building Dialogue in Community

Community Listening Circle Workshop:

“Civilizations based on opposition eventually face gridlock, and finally fail.” ~Sociobiologist Rebecca Costa

Our Peace Circle Training Workshop was inspired by Native American Talking Stick Circle Process, American Friend Service Committee’s Shared Security Principles, and Leverett Peace Pagoda’s 2016 Shared Security Walk for Peace, ):
Listening Circles – building dialogue, can reknit the communities where we live. SHARED SECURITY begins at home, begins in communities. In our Neighbors Shared Safe Community Circle we use Native American Talking Stick Circle Process as a springboard to discover shared concerns and common values among participants, and empower neighbors to overcome challenges and create solutions together, where they live, creating shared safety in their communities.

In our workshop, we teach dialogue skills, and facilitate a two part process:
Part 1: Listening Circle:
The first part is the listening circle where each person speaks from the heart, and shares their truth, and all the members of the circle practice “present” listening to each persons voice. In this way common concerns and challenges become “seen”. As we go around the circle, we take notes on a whiteboard of challenges, common concerns, insights.

Part 2: Collaborative Brainstorming:
The second part is a collaborative brainstorm process where we invite participants to rephrase challenges as “How Might We…” questions.

Then with post-it notes, we ask them to create as many solutions to those challenges as they can. Finally, we ask participants to group their ideas into common themes and categories.

At the end of two hours, participants go from not knowing what the challenges are, to having actionable solutions, created together, that can be prototyped.