Learn with Us

The Gandhi Institute offers learning experiences to groups of all kinds and sizes. We adjust the length and content of our offerings to best serve the groups with whom we work. We offer training to adults, high school/university student groups, and community groups.

If you would like to schedule a workshop or training, email bianca@gandhiinstitute.org.

Workshop Topics

Gandhi staff members are available to facilitate the workshops listed below. We design all of our workshops to help participants build critical skills. The cost of workshops are negotiated by the coordinators, and all contributions benefit the work of the Gandhi Institute.

Engaging in Difficult Conversations

Many of us were raised to believe that conflict is bad and ought to be avoided. As a result, our ways of engaging with conflicts may often swing between the extremes of avoidance and explosion. In this workshop, we explore the benefits of engaging productively with conflict. We also discuss strategies for having the tough conversations that lead to understanding and positive transformation in groups and in our personal lives.

Nonviolent Communication

Given the challenges our communities have been facing, it can be easy and almost irresistible to disengage from others instead of talking about what's really going on and to share a vision of where to go from here. Learning Nonviolent Communication offers one avenue for engaging deeply with ourselves and one another so we’re better equipped to keep doing the work of building a future that works for all.

Grief Circles

Holding grief in community has the power to be a place where transformation happens. With so much harm being done in the world right now, we offer spaces for the community to co-hold one another's experiences.

Mental Health and Mindfulness

How can we handle our daily stressors? Using sketchbook journaling prompts, body movement, and discussions, we explore what it means to be mindful and in our bodies. Participants are encouraged to identify their personal coping strategies and map new pathways toward their ideal vision of themselves.

Book Groups

We regularly offer public and private book groups for the following, (but not limited to) books:
-Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? By Martin Luther King, Jr.
-Healing Resistance, by Kazu Haga
-White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
-The Gift of Anger, by Arun Gandhi
-My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Menakem
-Pushout, by Monique Morris
-Jesus and the Disinherited, by Howard Thurman
-World as Lover, World as Self, by Joanna Macy
-The Purpose of Power, by Alicia Garza

Feedback Learning Labs

Most teams, organizations, and groups acknowledge the importance of giving and receiving feedback on a regular basis. However, it’s rare that members actually exchange feedback and hear how they are impacting others. Lacking this information can be detrimental to the group’s functioning. Feedback that isn’t shared often shows up as tension and conflict at a later point in time. In this workshop, participants explore and practice simple communication models to increase their confidence and skill in giving feedback with more frequency.

Intro to Restorative Practices

We work with groups to explore the roots and principles of restorative practices. In this workshop, we’ll focus on how restorative practices can apply to the context of each specific group. This offering is most effective as a series of at least 3 workshops.

Motivational Interviewing

Change is challenging. Motivational interviewing (MI) is a nonviolent, compassionate, evidence-based communication practice for talking with people about change and working through ambivalence. Whether in workshops or through individual coaching, this workshop supports participants in learning the theory and skills to practice MI in work and day-to-day life.

Intro to Collaborative Decision Making

Group decision-making can be both joyous and challenging. In this workshop, participants explore several models of group decision-making that go beyond our default patterns. We often rely on voting or giving one person the authority to make a decision, but many more options exist!

De-escalation Skills

In this workshop, participants share and practice strategies to de-escalate potentially violent situations. We will apply strategies used in nonviolent campaigns and mental health fields to jump in and practice de-escalation skills based on real-life situations.

Strategies for Tough Times

The challenges of the past few years have left many of us feeling depleted, low on resilience, and burnt-out. While there have been an impressive number of innovations and adaptations to the way we live and work together, many folks are feeling deeply impacted by the stressors of working, learning, and traveling amidst so much challenge. This workshop is an opportunity to “recharge your battery” while also learning trauma-informed tools for helping others to recharge theirs. Participants will be invited to experiment with multiple impactful strategies and take their ideas back to their own groups and communities.

Appreciative Inquiry and Planning Processes

Appreciative Inquiry is a theory and model for discovering what’s working well within a group or system and building on strengths to work towards a shared vision. Rather than focus on weaknesses and critique, this approach invites creativity and deep-learning to build the world we most want to inhabit. Gandhi Institute staff can apply Appreciative Inquiry to support individuals and groups in conversations and group processes, such as strategic planning.

Facilitation Support

Many groups struggle at one time or another to get along, make decisions, or work towards a shared purpose. Our skilled facilitators can talk through challenges with groups and help develop strategies to work together constructively. We are also available to facilitate group processes where you’d just like some extra support from someone outside of the group.

Conflict Transformation Support

If you’ve got a conflict or challenge you’d like some support with, whether between one other person or within a group, we may be able to help. We can talk through the struggle with different parties and support everyone in coming together. We use a variety of tools including restorative processes, other circle processes, mediations, and more to support people who’d like to work through a conflict together.

Anger as a Force for Change

Anger is a powerful emotion that can sometimes have destructive effects, but anger can also be harnessed to remind us what’s important, and to create change. This workshop explores anger’s relationship to other emotions, coping skills to help process and harness the energy of anger, and strategies that Arun Gandhi and other change makers have used to harness this powerful force.

Intro to Kingian Nonviolence (series)

We explore topics such as: The definitions of violence and nonviolence An analysis of the different types and levels of conflict, and how they escalate and de-escalate A brief history of the Civil Rights Movement and some of Dr. King's philosophies The principles (the will) Kingian Nonviolence, how to view and transform conflict The steps (the skill) of Kingian Nonviolence, how to engage with conflict and organize a campaign

Teambuilding/
Relationship Building

Through interactive exercises, these workshops aid in the creation of a supportive space for team members. By introducing and encouraging a restorative culture, we can help communities of coworkers, neighbors, or volunteers grow closer together.

Let’s Talk About Hate

What is hate? How does it shape our thoughts, identities, and communities? What can we do about it? We’ll spend time exploring this seldom discussed topic from a variety of perspectives and traditions.

Garden Skills

A community learning experience where all skill levels are welcome. In these workshops you can expect to learn how to prep, set up and tend to a small home garden.

Workshop Feedback

“Through the teaching/instructing methods, our students are able to “let their guard down” and share each of their stories. We have watched our students interact with each other in positive and constructive ways, create new friendships, instill trust in themselves, their classmates, and YouthBuild staff. The experience students get during their Nonviolent Communication Training, with certainty, creates bonds lending to effective teamwork, communication, and leadership. The Gandhi Institute has not only proven to be a valuable resource to our organization, staff and students, but the community as a whole.”

Nick BrownYouth Build, Catholic Family Center

"The facilitators at the Gandhi Institute were accessible, helpful, and focused on what was being asked. They used their own expertise to tailor-make an experience for us based on our needs and content, with their guidance and direction. The Gandhi Institute helped us engage 25 emerging student-leaders in skill building, communication, presentation, and critical thinking skills around the subject matter of peacemaking and restorative practices. The Institute encouraged and drew out the students’ strengths as a part of the workshop experience."

Office of Campus MinistrySt. John Fisher University