Past Workshops & Circles
See all current workshops
Living With An Open Heart:
Compassion Cultivation Training
Public
Weekly on Tuesdays, Feb 28 - Mar 31, 2023 // 3:00-4:30pm PST // Zoom
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This 4-session Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT), designed at Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research & Education, offers practical tools and exercises designed to enhance your awareness, compassion, and resilience. CCT will support you to improve your relationships with friends, family, clients, patients, staff, and co-workers. You'll walk away from each CCT class with tools and practices you can immediately put to work. Learn more...
Transformative Grieving
Public
Friday, Nov 18, 2022​ // 4-7pm PST // Zoom
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The acute pain of grief has been so real since the start of the pandemic - yet we and our communities are no strangers to loss and sorrow. Grief can be experienced after a loss of anything or anyone foundational and endearing to us. For many, it’s linked to generational wounds that have been pushed deep down in order to survive. As white supremacy and capitalist culture urge us to “move on” from our grief, we’re making space to be seen and witnessed in our pain, and discover the wisdom that emerges when we befriend it. In doing so, we’ll also hold space for the complexity of love, connection, and gratitude that live side by side with loss - and practice radical self-love & community care through it all. Register here...
Holding Connection Centered Spaces
Public
Oct 11, 18, and 25, 2022​ // 3-6pm PST // Zoom
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This workshop is open to all who hold space for others and want to explore this question: What barriers to growth and connection surface when we hold space and how can we address what needs care when they surface?
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Recognizing that top-down, rigidly held spaces informed by a culture of white supremacy are the norm, we often become nervous when we deviate from that norm (or when others do) and feel “out of control” inside and outside of our bodies. When our bodies feel threatened, it tends to lean into what is familiar, which is often in alignment with the oppressive patterns of thought and disconnection.
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Our invitation here is to pump the brakes and pull off to the side to observe how our bodies express calls for help and invite care where needed in order to have the capacity to hold space in ways that feel more emergent, especially when conflict arises.
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Note: this workshop is an opening for ongoing practice. It is meant to springboard us into practice as we continue to hold space in our places of work, activism, and other space of collective connection.
Living With An Open Heart:
Compassion Cultivation Training
Public
Weekly on Thursdays, Sep 1 - Oct 20​ // 11am-1pm PST // Zoom
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Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) is an 8-week personal and professional development course designed at Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research & Education. The program includes practical tools and exercises designed to enhance your awareness, compassion, and resilience. CCT will support you to improve your relationships with friends, family, clients, patients, staff, and co-workers. You'll walk away from each CCT class with tools and practices you can immediately put to work. Learn more...
Healing Cycles of Harm:
BIPOC Cohort
Public
Weekly on Mondays, July 18 - Sep 19, 2022​ // 3-6pm PST // Zoom
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This 10 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT). ​Learn more...
Mindful Self Compassion
Public
Thursdays, July 7-28, 2022 // 12-1:30pm PST // Zoom
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This is a 4-session mini version of the Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT), a personal and professional development course designed at Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research & Education. The program includes practical tools and exercises designed to enhance your awareness, compassion, and resilience. CCT will support you to improve your relationships with friends, family, clients, patients, staff, and co-workers. You'll walk away from each CCT class with tools and practices you can immediately put to work.
Healing Us: Healing & Resilience
for Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Advocates
Private
Mondays, May 9-23, 2022 // 9-10:30am EST // Zoom​
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This 3 session workshop supports activists working to prevent child sexual abuse. Participants will share lived experiences as survivor advocates, learn about the impact of trauma and vicarious trauma on physical, mental, emotional, and relational health and wellbeing, and discover healthy ways to respond vs. react to triggers, and set healthy boundaries, and cultivate a sense of personal agency.
Mindful Self Compassion
Public
Weekly on Wednesdays, Feb 10 - Mar 17​ // 12-1:30pm PST // Zoom
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This 6-session workshop will help you cultivate a practice of mindful self compassion to address anxiety and depression, develop healthy coping strategies, and build on your innate inner strength and wisdom. ​
Healing Cycles of Harm:
QTBIPOC Cohort
Public
Weekly, March to May 2022​
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This 10 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT). ​Learn more...
Healing Cycles of Harm:
QTBIPOC Cohort
Public
Weekly on Fridays, Oct 15 - Dec 10​, 2021 // 3-6pm PST // Zoom
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This 9 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT). ​Learn more...
Healing Cycles of Harm:
Men & Masculine Identified People
Public
Weekly on Tuesdays, Sep 14 - Nov 9​ // 5-8pm PST // Zoom
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This 9 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT). ​Learn more...
Healing Us: Vicarious Trauma Support for
Child Sexual Abuse Advocates
Private
Wednesdays, Sep 8 - Oct 6 // 8-11am PST // Zoom​
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This 5 session workshop supports individuals who serve as child sexual abuse (CSA) advocates. Participants will share lived experiences as survivor advocates, learn about the impact of trauma and vicarious trauma on physical, mental, emotional, and relational health and wellbeing, and discover healthy ways to respond vs. react to triggers, and set healthy boundaries, and cultivate a sense of personal agency.
Promoting Emotional Resilience in BIPOC and Underserved Communities
Public
Integrative Health for the Underserved 2021 Conference
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September 25, 2021 // 12-1pm PST // Zoom
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Health inequities that play a larger toll on underserved and indigenous communities also have a greater effect on emotional health and wellbeing. Integrative Health practitioners must be able to incorporate tools of resilience and wellbeing into their practice, to best serve these communities. At this year's IM4US Annual Conference, we would like to share some best practices which IH professionals can use within the scope of their practice to provide care that promotes and integrates emotional health and resilience. Our expertise lies in evidence-based approaches to increasing the wellbeing and resilience of health equity providers, and we propose presenting how to apply these approaches to the work of caring for underserved, marginalized, and indigenous communities. Through reflection-based tools, somatic approaches, and adult-learning pedagogy, we aim to provide concrete tools that providers can use when caring for the underserved, as well as for themselves as practitioners.
Healing Cycles of Harm:
BIPOC Cohort
Public
Weekly on Mondays, Aug 9 - Oct 4 // 5:30-8:30pm PST // Zoom
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This 9 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT). ​Learn more...
Transformative Grief
Public
July 30, 2021 // 3-6pm PST // Zoom
The acute pain of grief has been so real since the start of the pandemic - yet we and our communities are no strangers to loss and sorrow. Grief can be experienced after a loss of anything or anyone foundational and endearing to us. For many, it’s linked to generational wounds that have been pushed deep down in order to survive. As white supremacy and capitalist culture urge us to “move on” from our grief, we’re making space to be seen and witnessed in our pain, and discover the wisdom that emerges when we befriend it. In doing so, we’ll also hold space for the complexity of love, connection, and gratitude that live side by side with loss - and practice radical self-love & community care through it all. Register here via RooT Healing Conference & Clinic ...
Transformative Grief
Private
June 25, 2021 // 5-8pm PST // Zoom
The acute pain of grief has been so real since the start of the pandemic - yet we and our communities are no strangers to loss and sorrow. Grief can be experienced after a loss of anything or anyone foundational and endearing to us. For many, it’s linked to generational wounds that have been pushed deep down in order to survive. As white supremacy and capitalist culture urge us to “move on” from our grief, we’re making space to be seen and witnessed in our pain, and discover the wisdom that emerges when we befriend it. In doing so, we’ll also hold space for the complexity of love, connection, and gratitude that live side by side with loss - and practice radical self-love & community care through it all.
Democratizing Resilience
National Conference on Race & Ethnicity (NCORE)
Private
June 8, 2021 // 2:30-5:30pm CDT // Zoom
This participatory, experiential session will explore collective healing through an anti-capitalist, transformative justice framework. Centering the wisdom of our bodies, our ancestral lineages, and our own lived experience, we will utilize somatic practice, psycho-education, and expressive arts to track narratives of generational trauma and violence in our bodies, and co-create the medicine we need to heal and build collective power from a place of purpose and possibility.
Healing Advocacy for Educators
Private
Monthly, Jan - Jun 2021 // 6-8pm PST // Zoom
Private monthly sessions in trauma-informed and healing-generative care, mental health, and individual and community resilience for educators who belong to the Teachers 4 Social Justice and H.E.L.L.A. communities.
Mindful Self Compassion
Public
Weekly on Fridays, Mar 19 - May 17 // 2-4pm PST // Zoom
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Mindful Self Compassion (MSC) is an empirically supported, 8-week training program designed to cultivate the skill of self-compsassion. Based on the ground-breaking research of Dr. Kristin Neff and the clinical expertise of Dr. Christopher Germer, MSC teaches us how to treat ourselves with kindness, care, and understanding.
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For more info or to register, email: lakiba@sbcglobal.net
Healing Cycles of Harm:
Oakland BIPOC Youth Cohort
Public
Weekly on Tuesdays, Mar 23 - May 18​ // 3-6pm PST // Zoom
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This 9 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT). ​Learn more...
Healing Cycles of Harm: BIPOC Cohort
Public
Weekly, Oct 20 - Dec 16, 2020 // 3-6pm PST // Online
This 9 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT). ​Learn more...
Compassion Cultivation Training
Public
Weekly, Oct 9 - Dec 12, 2020 // 2-4pm PST // Online
CCT is an 8-week, personal and professional development course designed at Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research & Education. The program includes practical tools and exercises designed to enhance your awareness, compassion, and resilience. CCT will support you to improve your relationships with friends, family, clients, patients, staff, and co-workers. You'll walk away from each CCT class with tools and practices you can immediately put to work. Learn more...
Nov 14, 2020 // 11am PST // Online
Custom resilience, wellness, and self care workshop for the QuestBridge community of scholars and alumni, at the annual QB Convene event.
Reclaiming Our Resilience
Private
Nov 11 - 12, 2020 // Kagadi, Uganda
Custom 2-day training for health workers and community development officers working with Raising The Village in Kagadi, southwest Uganda.
Gender & Healing Advocacy
Private
Oct 13, 2020 // 5 - 6:30pm PST // Online
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The word 'resilience' has been thrown around a lot lately - from the news to social media. But what does it actually mean? And how do we cultivate it? This experiential workshop explores what it means to cultivate our own expression of resilience. This workshop has been delivered at various conferences and events and we are excited to bring this content to the Circles International community.
Redefining Resilience
Public
Intro to Somatic Healing
Private
Oct 9, 2020 // Online
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A custom workshop on somatic healing foundations for the Oakland Department of Violence, in partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT).
Somatic Healing & Collective Resilience Building
Private
Oct - Dec, 2020 // Online
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A custom, 5-session workshop for a Bay Area social justice organization, focusing on somatic healing, collective resilience, and transformative justice, in partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT).
Promoting Emotional Resilience in Underserved Communities
Private
Aug​ 28, 2020 // Online
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A custom session for the IM4US annual conference for integrative healthcare professionals, in partnership with Circles International.
Aug - Oct, 2020 // 6 - 8pm PST // Online
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Monthly custom workshop on healing generative tools to support educators and students impacted by individual, collective, and generational trauma. In partnership with RooT, Teachers 4 Social Justice, and H.E.L.L.A.
Healing Advocacy for Educators
Private
Cultivating Resilience in Difficult Times
Public
Aug 18, 2020 // 10am PST // Online
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In this 60-minute workshop, we will explore the impact of traumatic stress on our physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual well-being - at the individual and collective level, and learn foundational tools for cultivating resilience in difficult times. In partnership with Mindful Living Collective.
Weekly, Jul 22 - Sep 16, 2020 // 3 - 6pm PST // Online
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This 9 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT).
Healing Cycles of Harm:
BIPOC Cohort
Public
Weekly, Jul 20 - Sep 14, 2020 // 3 - 6pm PST // Online
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This 9 session workshop explores the connection between interpersonal and systemic trauma and violence. Through somatic, mindfulness, and expressive arts practices, you'll gain tools to heal in community and practice compassionate accountability. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT).
Healing Cycles of Harm:
White Cohort
Public
Healing Cycles of Harm:
Oakland Community Leaders
Public
​Saturdays, April 18 - June 6, 2020 // Oakland, California
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An 8-week healing circle program and facilitator training - to help heal folks affected by the victim-aggressor cycle of trauma and harm, in collaboration with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT), Roots Community Health Center, and Oakland Unite.
Healing Advocacy for Educators
Private
Feb 29, 2020 // East Bay, California
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Healing generative tools to support educators and students impacted by individual, collective, and generational trauma. In partnership with RooT, Teachers 4 Social Justice, and H.E.L.L.A.
February 8, 2020 // Berkeley, California​
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Learn the basics of Reiki and energy healing, and how to support clients impacted by trauma to feel safe, empowered, and nurtured.
Trauma-Informed Reiki Level 1
Public
Healing Advocacy Level 1
Private
Feb 2020 // Kathmandu, Nepal
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Trauma recovery and healing advocacy for students at Asian College of Management and Technology in Kathmandu.
Feb 2020 // Kathmandu, Nepal
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Trauma recovery and healing advocacy for psychology students at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.
Healing Advocacy Level 1
Private
Healing Advocacy Level 1, 2, & 3
Private
Sep - Oct 2019 // Matatirtha & Baglung District, Nepal
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A series of workshops in trauma recovery and healing advocacy for community leaders in the Kathmandu Valley and Baglung, Nepal. In partnership with Raksha Nepal, Bright Lotus School, and Galkot Modernized Academy.
Jul 14 - 19, 2019 // Kambuga & Kutamba, Uganda​
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A partnership with EDJA Foundation and Nyaka AIDS Orphan Project to train community leaders in trauma healing for orphaned youth and survivors of sexual abuse.
Healing Advocacy Level 1
Private
May 8 - 10, 2019 // Matatirtha, Nepal
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A workshop in trauma recovery for orphaned and vulnerable youth with teachers and caregivers at the Bright Horizon Children's Home and School.
Healing Advocacy Level 1
Private
Apr 13 - Jun 1, 2019 // Oakland, California
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An 8-week healing circle program and facilitator training - to help heal folks affected by the victim-aggressor cycle of trauma and harm, in collaboration with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT).
Healing Cycles of Harm:
BIPOC LGBTQI Cohort
Public
Apr 27, 2019 // Oakland, California
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Somatic practices to transform our stories as survivors of sexual and interpersonal violence. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT) at the Healing Conference and Clinic.
Somatic Healing: Beyond Victim & Survivor
Public
Feb 8 - 10, 2019 // Oakland, California
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A workshop in trauma healing, resilience, and self-care for community leaders working with individual and collective trauma.
Cultivating Collective Healing
Public
Oct 15, 2018 // Cancun, Mexico​
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Basic principles of trauma-informed and community care. Facilitated together with Lauren Spahn (Still Harbor) at the annual Opportunity Collaboration global conference.
The Invisible Impact of Trauma
Open to event participants
Jul 18, 2018 // Oakland, California
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Somatic practices to transform our stories as survivors of sexual and interpersonal violence. In partnership with Reclaiming Our Own Transcendence (RooT) at the Community Healing Clinic and Conference.
Somatic Healing: Beyond Victim & Survivor
Public
Jul 8 - 10, 2018 // Kambuga, Uganda
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A partnership with Edja Foundation and Nyaka AIDS Orphan Project to train community leaders in trauma healing for orphaned youth and survivors of sexual abuse.
Healing In Community
Private
Nov 17 - 19, 2017 // Corte Madera, California
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A workshop in trauma healing, resilience, and self-care for activists and community leaders working with individual and collective trauma.
Transforming Trauma
Public
Oct 16, 2017 // Ixtapa, Mexico
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Examining the intersection of culture, trauma, healing, and transformation. Facilitated together with Tabitha Mpamira (EDJA Foundation) at the annual Opportunity Collaboration global conference.
The Color of Trauma
Open to event participants
Jun 21, 2017 // Kigali, Rwanda
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A workshop to learn basic tips and tools for community leaders working with survivors of trauma. Organized with support from Resonate.
Transforming Trauma
Public
Mar 17 - 19, 2017 // Berkeley, California
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A workshop in trauma healing, resilience, and self-care for activists and community leaders working with individual and collective trauma.
Safe Embrace Trauma Healing Level 1
Public
Oct 12, 2016 // Ixtapa, Mexico​
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Exploring the basic principles of trauma recovery for self and community transformation. Facilitated together with Teal Brown Zimring and Chris Garrett at the annual Opportunity Collaboration global conference.
Trauma Healing 101
Open to event participants
Safe Embrace Trauma Healing Level 1
Public
Aug 11 - 13, 2016 // Berkeley, California
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A workshop in trauma healing, resilience, and self-care for practitioners working with individual and collective trauma.
Jun 1 - 5, 2016 // Matatirtha, Nepal
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A workshop in trauma healing, resilience, and self-care with Women Awareness Centre Nepal, an organization connecting over 40,000 rural Nepali women to opportunities for economic and self empowerment.
Safe Embrace Trauma Healing Level 1
Private
Feb 18 - 21, 2016 // Corte Madera, California
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A workshop in trauma healing, resilience, and self-care for practitioners working with individual and collective trauma.
Safe Embrace Trauma Healing Level 1
Public
Jan 2015 // Kathmandu & Baglung District, Nepal
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A workshop in trauma recovery for orphaned and vulnerable youth with teachers and caregivers at the Bright Horizon Children's Home and School.
Safe Embrace Trauma Healing Level 1
Public
Nov 1 - 3, 2013 // Corte Madera, California
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A workshop in trauma recovery for practitioners working with individual and collective trauma. Event produced by Elayne Kalila Doughty MA MFT.
Safe Embrace Trauma Healing
Public
Aug 2013 // Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo​
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A workshop in trauma recovery for survivors of sexual and gender based violence with social assistants and caregivers at a safe house and leadership center in Eastern Congo.
