Insights from the first-ever Io Training on Facilitation as Feminist Leadership Praxis

Here’s a harvest of insights and inspirations as Io successfully launched its training on Facilitation as Feminist Leadership Praxis last May 15-20 at Bahay ni Io International House (BNI). The training workshop aims to develop the atttitudes, core principles and facilitation skills of feminist activists and women leaders to design and lead participatory processes that strengthen feminist dialogues for movement building.

The six-day training brought together 18 women activists from 14 countries, including Burma, Cambodia, France, Hungary, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Timor Leste. The participants expressed how this training has been a turning point in their personal journeys as women activists, finding resonance and feeling the deep connections of being part of women’s movement building. Io trainers Susanna George and Luz Maria Martinez developed an iterative learning space that also explored the concepts, principles, and skills needed to facilitate meetings and group processes.

“While Infocom that was primarily at the core of our organization’s advocacy has now changed, the need to dialogue, communicate and be connected has not gone away with the onset of the Internet. With this in mind, we believe that facilitating dialogues in an authentic way is a way to connect the women’s movement, ” explains trainer and facilitator Susanna George. 

Has the Feminist Facilitation training succeeded in demonstrating the need for liberatory processes and opening safe, creative spaces for feminist conversations?  Read more on what transpired at the recent Io Feminist Activist School, and from the participants’ reflections on their blog posts here.

We’ll also be sharing more highlights of the training workshop in our coming FB posts here: https://web.facebook.com/feminists.io/