Freedom Lifted recently developed the Justice at Work Coordinator’s Guide to assist individuals in bringing our training to one’s whole organization or business. We know that bringing a new justice oriented initiative can be a bit of work, so we’ve gathered resources to partner with you on this. We’ve compiled this guide to ease the process of initiating the training, and deepen the impact of the material.

In this blog, Mia Henry, CEO of Freedom Lifted, reclaims “wokeness” through describing the triangle of self-awareness in justice and equity work. In acknowledging how we’ve experienced oppression, oppressed others and resisted, we grow from victims, saviors and self-righteous activists to humble and trusted leaders. We are called to commit to healing, be accountable and act with humility. It’s time for those who believe in social awareness/consciousness-raising/political education work to reclaim the term “woke.” We don’t “stay woke” to hurt others, but to do the work fully aware of our own personal commitments to healing ourselves, being accountable to others, and work to dismantle oppressive systems with empathy and humility.

Now that we’ve discussed our origin stories and how we came to this work, it’s time to examine how we define leadership.

Telling our origin stories is the first essential conversation for shared leadership. Reflect on and share with one another your backgrounds, beliefs, assumptions, and commitments.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how even good people are often unhappy with the training they’ve experienced and what we can do about it. After reflecting on my own experiences participating in employer-sponsored DEI trainings, I recently headed to LinkedIn and asked “Why do people dread DEI trainings?” I’ve compiled a list of some of the reasons these experiences are often frustrating.

Shared power requires that we see power as abundant, not scarce. We must think about what power is and dominance as two different things. We must see power is being available to all, regardless of identity.

Mia Henry interviews Erin Butler on how and what it means to use data and data collection to improve justice + equity training and serve social movements.