Liberatory Facilitator Circle
A co-created space for activist facilitators to share, practice and grow in community.
Join a community practising care, solidarity and collective power.
In the first offering from Soulwork Spaces, we want to tend to the ecosystem of facilitators and trainers whose work is focused on liberation.
The Liberatory Facilitator Circle is a space where those working at the frontlines of justice, healing and systems change are resourced, restored and supported to grow in their personal and collective power.
Our monthly online gatherings will offer a dedicated time to get into our bodies, share knowledge, ideas and challenges, build connections, and practise together. As we learn more about this community and what feels needed, we hope to also develop an online platform with accessibly-priced memberships for sharing resources and engaging with other community members.
Each season, we’ll set a theme, then use the monthly sessions to dive deeper, through a combination of education (eg through peer-led skill-shares, guest speakers, signposting to resources), exploration (eg through discussion, somatic practices, personal and collective reflection), and embodiment (eg somatic practices, commitments to action, ongoing relationships). There will also be dedicated time to get to know your fellow practitioners.
See the upcoming programme below.
When and where?
The fourth Wednesday of every month, 2-4pm (UK time). Online via Zoom.
Why
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For those of us working for a radically different future, the realities of resisting the oppressive status quo can leave us burned out. We’ve spent years trying to fix the system from within, only to realise it was never broken. It’s time to down tools and build something new.
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Money is tight, our nervous systems are shot, and so many clients are resistant to really rocking the boat. We lose touch with the truths we know in our deepest spirit, as we’re pushed to conform to ‘mainstream’ ways of working.
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Freelancing can be lonely. This culture teaches us to see our closest peers as our competitors. It sells us binaries - right or wrong, in or out - fracturing our movements under the pressure of difference.
We know there is another way.
If we want to see it, we’ll have to build it ourselves, here and now.
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A liberated future needs us to be caring, sharing and healing, right here and now. It needs us to refuse to tread the path leading to more of the same, to carve out a fork in the road and bravely follow it together.
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One of us against the mainstream might be called a ‘trouble-maker’. Lots of us against the mainstream - now that’s really trouble. Beautiful, beautiful trouble.
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We need opportunities to connect with transformative ways of working and to practice with trusted peers. We need to embody the values we espouse - collective care, transformative justice, solidarity, anti-oppression, abolition - not just in the work we do, but in how we do it, and who we do it with.
How does it work?
Each season, we set a theme, based on what we hear from the community about what’s needed. Then we use the monthly sessions to dive deeper.
Each monthly session will combine elements of:
Education, through peer-led skill-shares, guest speakers, signposting to resources.
Exploration, through discussion, somatic practices, personal and collective reflection.
Embodiment, through somatic practices, commitments to action, and our ongoing relationships (including time just to hang out and get know one another).
Sessions are ‘pay what you can’ to help cover the costs of our time in preparing, promoting and holding the space, as well as to reinvest into the community (read more here). We invite community members to offer what they can, which might change month-by-month. We do not, however, want cost to be a barrier to participation. We recognise that many community members will be in low-paid and/or precarious work, from countries with lower income, and/or facing other systemic injustices impacting on their ability to contribute financially. Please know that you are welcome, too.
We encourage active participation in every session, but recognise this will look different for different people and on different days. Community members are welcome to choose whether to turn on their camera or mic, and can use the chat and reactions functions if preferred. To let us know any specific access requirements, please email kahra@soulworkco.org - we will do our utmost to accommodate.
For the 2025/26 period, the seasonal themes will be:
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A phase of intentional pause and reflection before we dive in. Composting what’s gone before us into fuel for the future. Ensuring a safe and fertile grounding where ideas, relationships and life can take root.
We focused on:
Articulating our purpose and co-creating the foundations for this community to thrive.
Exploring the lineages, values, frameworks in which we are rooted.
Sharing the personal practices that keep us grounded in those principles.
September: Ground work - setting out the premise, roles, expectations and agreements for this community.
October: Rooting into decoloniality - exploring how we define, relate to and embody our resistance to empire and white body supremacy.
November: Rooting into collective care - exploring how we define, relate to and embody our inherent worth and interdependence.
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Embedding liberatory practice into our DNA. Getting intentional about how we bring liberatory principles to life in our facilitation. Exploring how we shape the conditions where liberation can germinate.
We’ll focus onsharing the foundational practices, tools and resources that we use to hold truly liberatory spaces.
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Re-connecting with our humanity, vulnerability and strength. Intentionally fuelling the ecosystem through self- and collective care.
We’ll focus on:Exploring what nourishes us and what burns us out.
Sharing practices for self- and collective care.
Looking at pricing our work for sustaining our wellbeing.
More detail to come.
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Investing joy as an act of resistance.
We’ll focus on:
Spotlighting ‘wins’ and progress.
Sharing lessons learned.
Reflecting on our year together.
More details to come.