The Tended Garden

 

About The Tended Garden 

As BIPOC conflict workers, we are often on the frontlines of justice and movement spaces, holding a commitment to repair and healing within a fractured world. This work can be heavy, and we can’t pour from an empty well or grow from depleted soil.
 

The Tended Garden is a supportive space designed to disrupt White normative frameworks in conflict work while explicitly tending to our own well-being. Together, we will interrogate structural racism within our field, center equity and justice, and co-create powerful, liberatory practices.
 

We will co-cultivate this garden as a community of practice space where you can feel deeply resourced. We will design values-aligned justice-centered practices, test them directly in our work, and return to the garden to cross-pollinate insights, iterate, and learn alongside each other. It is a brave, supportive space built for experimentation, peer input, and collective restoration.

 

Is This Space For You?

This garden is specifically designed for you if you:
 

• Identify as a BIPOC practitioner actively working on the frontlines of conflict transformation (e.g., mediators, restorative justice practitioners, conflict coaches, dialogue facilitators, community organizers, consultants, or educators).

• Are feeling the weight of the current political climate and want a space that acknowledges the toll on your nervous system while offering collective support.

• Seek actionable, anti-oppressive frameworks that move beyond theory and embed deep equity into daily practice.

• Crave a rigorous, supportive community of peers eager to share lived experiences, challenge traditional paradigms, and co-learn.

• Are positioned to experiment and cross-pollinate, meaning you are currently working within organizations, networks, or movements where you can plant, test and grow new approaches.

 

What the Journey Includes

• A 10-Week Cycle: Seven 2-hour interactive, live virtual gatherings via Zoom, interspersed with intentional practices to integrate and experiment between live sessions.

• A Curated Digital Greenhouse: Unlimited access to a shared ecosystem of resources, including articles, case studies, and equity and justice-centered frameworks.

• An Intimate, Tended Cohort: To ensure relationships and space to share, the group will be capped at 20 practitioners.

• A Living Community of Practice: A fertile, supportive environment designed for you to co-learn, experiment, and restore alongside peers.

 

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Our Journey Arc

Please note: Live virtual gatherings take place on Thursdays via Zoom, from 10:00am - 12:00pm PT/1:00 - 3:00pm ET

Preparing the Soil & Rooting (Weeks 1–3)
 

• Week 1 | February 18, 2027 (Live Zoom) - Tilling the Soil: Alignment & Shared Ground

  • We gather to seed our collective agreements, cultivate trust, and map the unique landscape of our shared garden.
     

• Week 2 | February 25, 2027 (Live Zoom) - Uprooting White Normativity: Centering BIPOC Lived Experiences

  • An intentional interrogation of White normative conflict structures. We pull the weeds of systemic racism to make space for our ancestral truths and lived experiences.
     

• Week 3 | March 4, 2027 (Asynchronous Reflection — No Live Session) - Deep Rooting: Internal Integration

  • A quiet week for independent reflection, journaling, and digesting the conversations from our initial gatherings.

 

Nourishing our Ecosystem (Weeks 4–5)
 

• Week 4 | March 11, 2027 (Live Zoom) - Tending the Canopy & Germinating Ideas: Somatic Care & Co-Design (Part 1)

  • Honoring the toll of this work on our nervous systems, unearthing ancestral wisdom, and brainstorming justice-centered practices.
     

• Week 5 | March 18, 2027 (Live Zoom) - Sowing the Garden: Co-Development & Cultivation (Part 2)

  • Continuing to collaboratively build and refine a fertile shared repository of liberatory approaches that we will try out in our work.
     

Growth & Cross-Pollination (Weeks 6–9)
 

• Weeks 6 & 7 | March 25 & April 1, 2027 (Asynchronous Experimentation — No Live Sessions) - Field Germination: Planting in the Wild

  • Two weeks dedicated to planting your newly cultivated practices, frameworks, and approaches directly into our current organizational or community work.
     

• Week 8 | April 8, 2027 (Live Zoom) - The Extended Harvest: Cross-Pollination & Storytelling (Part 1)

  • We return to the garden as the first half of our cohort shares their insights—unpacking what bloomed, what withered, and what shifted.
     

• Week 9 | April 15, 2027 (Live Zoom) - The Extended Harvest: Cross-Pollination & Storytelling (Part 2)

  • We continue our collective witness. The second half of our cohort shares their reflections as we cross-pollinate patterns, strategies, and further fortify our communal toolkit.
     

The Harvest & Closing (Week 10)
 

• Week 10 | April 22, 2027 (Live Zoom) - Harvesting: Abundance and Closing

  • Our final gathering to celebrate our collective growth, solidify our support network, and prepare to carry the fruits of this garden back into our broader movements.

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