We're excited to announce the dates for our second ever anti-racist boot camp!
What’s the boot camp all about?
We are creating a majority Black space, into which white participants will be welcomed but where they will not be centred. Together we will explore how to use our power to resist and disrupt systemic racism.
This will be an actively anti-racist place for learning and replenishing where we can be alive to the dynamics of racism in ourselves, in our relationships, and in the systems where we work, in service of racial justice.
Why another anti-racist boot camp?
After two years of heightened attention to racism, how much has changed?
Many of us celebrate the fact that more organisations and people than ever are getting involved. But we fear that these conversations, this ‘listening and learning’, has not – and will not – deliver the change we need.
This boot camp offers a three-day retreat for anti-racist practitioners and activists, to reconnect to your purpose and sharpen your practice. We will support you to enhance your power to target not just symptoms, but causes, to dismantle the structures, ideologies and ways of thinking that keep racism in place.
What inspired this year’s boot camp?
Racism has a way of remaking itself and protecting itself from discovery. It can be hard to ‘fight’ such an adversary and sustain ourselves for the long haul. We’ve been asking ourselves:
How do we value small wins while relentlessly focusing on the bigger goal?
How to inspire others to secure, but not be satisfied with, incremental improvement?
Can we take symbolic wins - like representation - but stay true to a radical vision of eradicating systems of oppression, not just placing levers of power into different hands?
Who is the boot camp for?
It’s not for beginners. It’s designed for activists, facilitators and practitioners already active in anti-racist space. It’s for you if you’re…
ready to step into a space that is brave rather than comfortable
willing to engage in critical self-reflection
prepared to invest in yourself, and in the efficacy of your ‘self as instrument’
interested in understanding more about yourself (and not just the good stuff)
committed to learning and using your skills for social justice
prepared to work with white people if you are Black, and Black people if you are white.
How will this help me?
The work of racial justice requires clear thinking, and emotional strength. It requires courage, persistence and hope. It can be easy to lose your way and even more dangerous to believe that you have a way.
There’s so much to manage - your relationship to the work, to the people you work with, and most important, your relationship with yourself. Knowing who you are in this work is crucial because how you show up as a human being matters - the most powerful anti-racist instrument any of us has is ourselves.
This boot camp offers a three-day retreat into yourself, to reconnect to your purpose and sharpen your practice.
Don’t take our word for it – here’s what last year’s participants said:
“Thank you for the space you created. It was challenging, connecting, uncomfortable, it felt safe to get it wrong. I appreciate brap’s ability to be uncompromising and also deeply caring - thank you.”
“Given me lots to continue working on personally and to enhance my practice and recognise, embrace and use my power.”
“This has reconfirmed what and how I need to show up to do the work. I feel so grateful to have met such a wonderful, dedicated community all here to make change in their areas of work.”
“It was brave and courageous, and wonderfully facilitated and held. Replenishing, challenging, enlightening and soul nourishing... I am even more up for the fight than i have ever been... thank you all for all the hard work and wonderful support and provocation.”
Join us in this learning space if you want to:
find a community of like-minded souls committed to moving beyond the ‘tried and found wanting’ methods that centred whiteness and white comfort;
challenge and strengthen your analysis and hone your intersectional anti-racist practice;
refresh your purpose and find intellectual, emotional and spiritual sustenance;
take stock of your relationship to your own racialised identity – what might you want to let go of, embrace, or expand, to be better-resourced internally?
enjoy laughter, learning and truth telling with people who are passionate about human liberation and racial justice.
Costs
The participation fee is £495.
We also offer a discounted rate of £265 for those with limited means. In addition, bursaries may be available for people who would benefit from attending but who find even the discounted rate unaffordable. If this is you, please contact us to see what might be available.
How can I book on?
You can request an application form by emailing us here. For more information, download the information pack. Deadline for receipt of applications: 8 July 2022.