The April 2021 ACMHE Webinar

Balancing Hope and Fear: Resourcing Concerned Citizens for Sustainable Environmental Justice Work

Presented by Vaishali Mamgain, PhD & Brooke Lavelle, PhD

Monday, April 12th
3 – 4:30 pm ET 

Registration: free for ACMHE members (join here) / $25 for non-members
$25 access grants available
(registration closes an hour before the event)

Registration has now closed

What if our efforts to create a more just and caring world weren’t separated from our efforts to adapt to near-term social and environmental collapse?

Together with colleagues from the Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany, and other collaborators from across the world, our team designed a contemplative-based, anti-oppressive, and healing-centered course to help climate activists and concerned citizens stay resourced in the work. Our program aims to help participants understand the relationship between the climate crisis and other interlocking systems of oppression, including white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism. It is also designed to help us develop the capacity to prepare for the possibility of both the “Great Unraveling” and the “Great Transition,” while continuing to care for each other and all life with a deep sense of courage and vulnerability.

This course has been adapted and taught for university graduate students as well as for the general public.

Intended webinar takeaways:

•  Learn new tools for relating and responding to the climate crisis;
•  See connections between the climate crisis and other crises of our time;
•  Understand a framework for balancing hope and fear in relation to the climate crisis;
•  Connect and share resources with other colleagues engaged in this work.

Vaishali Mamgain, Ph.D. (she/her), is Associate Professor at the University of Southern Maine and the Director of the Bertha Crosley Ball Center for Compassion where she facilitates anti-racism and compassion workshops for the University’s Senior Leadership team, faculty, and staff and for the wider Maine community. Amongst classes that she teaches, her favorite is “Practicing Nature, Deepening Compassion,” where students learn how to invite themselves into presence “with and for” the natural world. She also serves on the Board of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. 

Brooke Lavelle, Ph.D. (she/her), is the Co-Founder and President of the Courage of Care Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to facilitating the co-creation of a more just, compassionate world. Courage’s diverse, interdisciplinary, multi-generational team provides training and consultation in relational compassion practices, anti-oppressive pedagogies, restorative healing methods and systems tools to social service and caring professionals, as well as to educational, spiritual and human rights organizations.