Facilitation in Times of Rupture Training 2027 A three-day training exploring group facilitation as a radical relational practice, helping us navigate big conversations and complex collaborations with courage and care. 3 days training in Berlin, 24-26 February 2027 Why now? Many of us are tired, and many of us are longing: for groups where we can disagree without breaking, for trust that holds under pressure, for work that feels shared instead of lonely. We will gather in groups either way. The question is whether those gatherings drain us or strengthen us. Polarisation, mistrust, burnout and conflict can pull us apart. With care, intention and practice, the same rooms can become places of courage, tenderness and even joy. And the stakes are high. Imperial wars, forced displacement and authoritarianism are spreading. Trans, queer, migrant and other communities already at risk face growing attacks on their safety and belonging. Climate collapse deepens the wounds left by empire and colonialism. We need ways of staying with what is hard, staying together, and planning for the long struggle ahead. In the midst of these intersecting and accelerating crises, what can facilitation offer? Who is it for? Educators, community leaders, cultural managers, project coordinators, organisers, activists, artists, journalists, and anyone who works in groups facing the overlapping crises of our times, whether or not you call yourself a facilitator. This may be for you if you: often bridge perspectives and hold tensions in groups, teams or communities want to see power dynamics more clearly, including your own, and shape more inclusive, fair and care-centred spaces want more confidence and practical skill in holding space for difficult conversations, without needing to become a professional facilitator What you’ll practise Programme Day 1: radical relational practice, storytelling Day 2: participation, collaboration, complexity Day 3: meaning-making, harvesting, design Designing participatory spaces: framing questions, choosing methods, creating conditions for trust and creativity Navigating difficult conversations: deep listening, working with different perspectives and group tensions Awareness of power: reflecting on your role and positionality, recognising patterns of exclusion Embodied, care-centred practice: somatic awareness, grounding and trauma-aware approaches Collective sense-making: storytelling, harvesting insights and identifying next steps Interactive sessions, peer exchange, a mix of theory and practice, and activities for different bodies and ways of learning Our approach We see facilitation as more than tools and techniques. It is a radical relational practice, rooted in care, shared responsibility and the courage to engage with difference and disagreement. How we come together matters as much as what we are trying to achieve: the spaces we co-create can reproduce power imbalances, exclusion and harm, or open possibilities for trust, collective learning and change that spirals from the personal to the systemic. We draw on our work with communities, collectives and organisations, and on traditions that have shaped us, including Art of Hosting, Harvesting Meaningful Conversations, The Politics of Trauma and The Resilience Toolkit. Facilitation is an evolving practice that belongs to all of us, not just professionals. The course is: Participatory and peer-led: everyone brings knowledge and lived experience, and learning is co-created Transformative and grounded in interdependence: changing ourselves, our relationships and our ways of working is part of changing the systems we are part of Power-conscious and care-centred: making power visible, challenging exclusion and harm, and sharing responsibility for trust and dignity Emergent and adaptive: working with complexity and uncertainty, and staying open to what unfolds Hosting-Team Alice Priori, CitizensLab e.V. Alice Priori is an anthropologist, facilitator, and co-founder of CitizensLab e.V., a Berlin-based organisation working on social and cultural transformation across Europe. She has over fifteen years of experience working with NGOs, foundations, European programmes, institutions, activists, and local communities, including five years living and working in Palestine. Her facilitation practice focuses on how we can stay in relationship and work collectively across difference, conflict, and uncertainty. Drawing on participatory leadership, Art of Hosting, somatic and trauma-aware approaches, and decolonial practice, she supports groups in navigating difficult conversations, engaging with power and complexity, and creating spaces for trust, courage, and meaningful participation. Her work is rooted in the understanding of facilitation as a relational practice and a shared responsibility for how we build spaces of collective care, collaboration, and social transformation Sarj Lynch (Collective Compass, Big Beef & Beyond, aequa) Sarj (they/them) is a Berlin-based facilitator, educator and community care organizer, from so-called Texas. They love dreaming and practicing for more loving worlds as this one unravels, together with people already doing the work to welcome these worlds into being. They support political and cultural collectives to stick together as the times get tougher and the stakes higher. Through their Collective Compass programmes, they help groups align around what they care about and build the relational infrastructures, care protocols and ways of working to match. They co-initiated aequa (2016-2026), including a community space shared by dozens of collectives, and co-host Big Beef and Beyond, a popular education series on interpersonal conflict and community accountability. They also host the monthly “aequa Radio” on Refuge Worldwide, highlighting the often-invisible work of those worldbuilding as we navigate accelerating collapse. These practices grew from decades of experimenting in their own collectives, communities, friend groups and (chosen) family. They feel most at home in the grassroots and DIY cultures that radicalized them. Maksim Smekhov, Civil Society Forum e.V. I’m Maxim — a curious human being and facilitator working with civil society and communities. My path has taken me through Eastern Partnership countries and Central Asia, where I helped design learning spaces and international dialogue platforms. Coming from an oppressive environment, the work for communities and for people has always been deeply real and personal for me. My lived experience and ongoing personal transformation shape the way I host conversations, learning spaces, and collective reflection. The Art of Hosting practice gave me language and community for the work I care about: creating spaces for connection, dialogue, and shared meaning. Now based in Berlin, I contribute to several communities including Beyond Patriarchy and Citizens Lab. I currently “dance” in the role of Program Lead at the Civil Society Forum, weaving together facilitation, program design, and capacity development. Fill in this form to Register!!