WALL Facilitators

Lauren is an educator, facilitator, social justice activist, mother and dancer.  She draws on her background in intercultural communications, multicultural education and organizational development to create cross-cultural communication and diversity programs for organizations and educational institutions throughout the US.  In 1995, she co-founded coAction and for the past 12 years, has been providing professional development as well as school and community based trainings with an emphasis on race and ethnicity, white privilege, power and class, gender and homophobia. Her work has taken her to multiple venues including foundations, non-profit organizations, corporations, K-12 schools, universities and religious institutions.

Lauren is a dynamic and skilled facilitator who has witnessed the most powerful personal transformation and mutual understanding occurring when people share their stories and are heard.  Being able to partake in and practice dialogue about socially charged issues provides the confidence and skill-base for people to get though conflict. She is dedicated to the work of Bohmian Dialogue and providing the support and skills for organizations and schools to create “dialogic cultures.”  The benefits of creating working environments that expect to discuss the societal effects of race, gender and class both as individuals and collectively is an inclusive workplace of higher trust where critical thinking and rewarding communication become the norm.

Lauren has a BA in psychology from Western Washington University and a Master's degree in Multicultural Education from the University of San Francisco.  She also holds a certificate in Diversity Management Strategies from San Francisco State University.  Her thesis, titled “White Educators Teaching about Race and Racism” is available online (www.antiracism.com). She speaks Japanese and her international experience includes teaching for 4 years in Northern Japan and traveling throughout Asia, the South Pacific, North and South America and Europe.

Kristin is a woman committed to creating a world that works for everyone. She has long been a facilitator and trainer, and loves helping groups find ways to move toward the goals of their good work more easily. She is currently engaged in learning, teaching and sharing compassionate Non-violent Communication (NVC).

Since her first exposure to liberation work 18 years ago, she has made this central in her life, meeting needs for authentically contributing to healing and justice. Using this powerful framework, she found a way to cut through the cycle of violence in her work with runaway teens, abused kids, prisoners and their families. She joined and led the local Santa Cruz chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) training individuals and communities how to take action in the face of discrimination. In addition to this, she spent many years working with Lillian Roybal Rose in cross-cultural communications trainings, providing people with a framework to understand the many forms of oppression. Kristin is committed to being an ally against racism, anti-semitism and adultism and to developing allies as a working class lesbian. Raised in a loud working class family, she now enjoys being self employed as a trainer-facilitator-coach, following 20+ years working in non-profits and running a community center.

She enjoys contributing to the creation of a safe environment, one in which we choose to share, to heal, to learn from one other and to express what is alive in us as people who live in a world lacking the peace and justice we yearn for. A passionate advocate of creativity and justice, Kristin dreams of a time when each person knows they are beautiful, valuable, and that their contributions are important and well received.

 

Mariah Howard is a visual recorder, illustrator, actor, and educator. Her work with groups includes meeting and retreat design, facilitation, and leading The World Cafe dialogues. Mariah is also passionate about bringing improvisational theater into the work place as a way to build awareness, relationships and communication.

Mariah works with corporate and community groups capturing their conversations and presentations in a unique form of note taking called Mindscaping. Along with her business partner Nancy Margulies, Mariah continues to teach Mindscaping and Improvisational theater techinques in public seminars and workshops.

Her recent clients include the British Petroleum, the City of Richmond, The National Leadership Symposium and the National Retail Talent Summit, The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, Palestinian/Israeli Dialogues, Contemplative Outreach National Symposium, University Hospital of North Dakota and The Doyle Center for Autism Studies. She has worked and studied in Turkey, Israel, Japan, India and Thailand.

 

Catherine Orland, a trainer and facilitator who specializes in Multicultural Education, Cultural Competency, Organizational Development and Conflict Resolution;

• Consults with groups who seek to become more inclusive or increase their awareness around issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability and religion;

•Designs experiential activities and helps groups to process their learning through attentive facilitation;

• Challenges participants to move beyond their comfort zones and deepen their learning, while supporting them with compassion;

• Practices thoughtful listening and utilizes strategic questioning skills. She has a proven ability to help groups clearly articulate their commonalities and differences.

In addition to policy analysis and youth development work, Catherine has also organized Study Circles—a national dialogue process that brings together diverse stakeholders to take action on important community issues. Through her experiences as both a Study Circles participant and trainer of facilitators, Catherine identified dialogue as a crucial method for effecting individual, community and policy change. To document these results, she innovated and implemented the first mixed-methods evaluation of one school-based Study Circles program. Her Masters thesis, Teachers, Study Circles and the Racial Achievement Gap: How One Dialogue and Action Program Helped Teachers Integrate the Competencies of an Effective Multicultural Educator, was based on that evaluation.

Catherine holds a Master of Arts in Social Justice in Intercultural Relations with a focus in Community Development and Social Action Training from the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont. She credits SIT with theoretically grounding her field-based training and facilitation experience in the principles of Adult Learning Theory, the Experiential Learning Cycle and Popular Education. Catherine received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Mount Holyoke College, where she had the opportunity to study with Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Also at Mount Holyoke, under the mentorship of Andrea Ayvazian, she founded a dialogue/activism/self-exploration group called White Women Against Racism, which continues to exist. Catherine speaks Spanish at an advanced level and has traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. Born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, Catherine currently resides in San Francisco, California.

 

Robert is currently and independent executive coach and organizational effectiveness consultant working in the Bay Area.

Robert has a distinguished international career working for and consulting to a range of organizations.  Most recently Robert worked for Cisco Systems for seven years developing and implementing global ethics and diversity initiatives.   As part of his Cisco engagement Robert lived and worked abroad leading initiatives in Europe, the Mid-East and Africa.  Additionally, Robert has worked as a Sr. Diversity Manager for Gap Inc. and as an Organizational Effectiveness Consultant for Hewlett-Packard.

Prior to joining the private sector, Robert was the Director, Office of Civil Rights for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco and a Regional Quality Liaison for the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

Robert earned his Juris Doctorate Degree in 1980 and has practiced state and federal employment discrimination law. He is also a graduate of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Advisory Council: Roberto Almanzan & Jasmine Schlafke

Sign up for our mailing
list and find out 15 Ways
Youth Can Help End Racism

(Email Address)