An Overview of the Community Empowerment Program

The basic Community Empowerment Program is the first in a series of community programs developed by the Mastery Foundation.

It is designed to bring together those committed to their communities and empower them in creating a new conversation for themselves and for their communities—a conversation based on inclusion, respect, trust, relationship, accountability, and the opportunity for authentic dialogue.

Where there might now be a lack of connection to the community or a lack of power or influence, this program leaves participants with a new sense of their power and place in their community.

This two-day program is generally offered as part of a longer-term initiative that includes additional training and follow-up sessions tailored to the needs of those involved. Developed in the Mississippi Delta community of Clarksdale, it has also been successfully offered in Northern Ireland and Israel as part our Initiatives there.

Course Outline

DAY ONE: Creating New Possibilities for Community

Overall Objective: Discover our present relationship to community and that we can create new possibilities

Morning. Objective is to get connected with each other, get connected to community, get accountable for the outcome

Afternoon. Objective is to confront the way it is; create for ourselves that we can create new possibilities, that we have something powerful to say about the way it is and will be

DAY TWO: Living Out Possibility In Community

Overall Objective: Create and practice new ways to live out the new conversations and possibilities created on Day One

Morning. Objective is to confront the way we live in the face of that reality and what we do to sustain it

Afternoon. Objective is to design and practice operating from principles that sustain new conversations and new possibilities