Training Curricula

All of PARCEO’s trainings are based on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and popular education, which value the experience and leadership of those most impacted by injustice as we collectively work to make change and build community power.

PARCEO has developed a number of social justice curricula geared toward universities and middle schools/high schools, social justice and community-based organizations, foundations, religious and cultural institutions, and others.

PARCEO also works with groups to create trainings that support and respond to their needs. Some of our trainings are available here on our website for community groups. Please feel free to adapt the training. Each training includes a complete curriculum packet and Facilitator’s Guide.

Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation

Together with educators, historians, and organizers, PARCEO created the “Curriculum on Antisemitism from a Framework of Collective Liberation.” The curriculum is devoted to understanding antisemitism (what it is and what it is not) and challenging it grounded in a deep commitment to justice and dignity for all people.

Project48

PARCEO has also partnered with Project48 to create The Palestinian Nakba curriculum. The curriculum offers the opportunity to learn about the robust Palestinian society that existed prior to the Nakba (catastrophe), the critical events leading up to and during 1948, and a prism through which to understand the ongoing nature of the Nakba and its impact on Palestinian lives.

PAR and Organizing for Justice

PAR and Organizing for Justice offers principles and practices, rooted in a PAR and popular education framework, that support our organizing for justice. This training looks at concrete examples of curricula, education, community research, and action plans undertaken by community and movement groups locally, nationally, and globally. We share challenges, possibilities, and strategies for working together for collective liberation.

Building a Foundation: an Introduction to PAR

“Building a Foundation” is an introduction to PAR principles and practices. This training provides concrete research and organizing skills and methodologies rooted in community processes, which provide a foundation for PAR-based work. Participants learn and model key PAR concepts and gain the tools and resources to build a sustainable foundation for participatory work.

Facilitation and co-facilitation through a PAR lens

Facilitators play an active role in determining group and community processes. This introduction to PAR provides skills and resources for facilitation and co-facilitation that build collective knowledge and active community participation. In this training, participants address their specific experiences and the needs of the group. Participants gain an understanding of the fundamental concepts of PAR and build a sustainable foundation for participatory facilitation and leadership.

Multilingual Facilitation

This facilitation training specifically addresses multilingual groups and facilitation with participants that have different language and literacy backgrounds. This training explores different resources and tools for facilitation using multiple modalities to  build collective knowledge and active community participation even when participants speak different languages and have varied literacy backgrounds.

Postionality, Part 1: Working Across Difference

This is first part of the Positionality training series. In “Working across Difference,” participants examine the complexity of their own identity and consider how it relates to race, class, power, gender, and privilege. Sharing stories, participants explore their unique roles, commonalities, and differences in order to develop relationships that value all voices and experiences.

Positionality, Part 2: Building Community

This is the second part of the Positionality training series and addresses building community in an organizational setting. This training explores collective definitions of community and how individual values are reflected in the larger organization. Participants analyze their organization’s role in the community and consider how their social justice work is reflected on an individual level, organizational level, and community level.

Positionality, Part 3: Outreach and Coalition Building*

This is the third part of the Positionality training series. “Outreach and Coalition Building” considers the ways that organizations connect with other groups, communities and community members to build strong and sustainable collaborative processes. This training provides skills and resources to identify potential collaborators and develop inclusive outreach programs to engage shared vision-building and collective decision-making.

Documentation and Evaluation through a PAR lens

In the “Documentation and Evaluation” training, participants explore the process of planning, setting goals, documenting work and collecting information relevant to their specific needs. This training helps participants consider and build participatory documentation and evaluation processes, including collaborative problem-solving, long-term and immediate analysis, and reflection of individual and group processes.

Creative Expression: Framing

This training is the first of PARCEO’s Cultural Resistance Series and explores how different forms of storytelling, composition, and visual narrative techniques can be used to strengthen one’s organizing and research. Participants explore creative practices to include different voices and perspectives, generating and building knowledge together. In this training, participants practice how to interpret, create and analyze images, and recognize how framing impacts one’s understanding of a subject.

Media Representations: Why Our Stories Matter

In this training participants explore how community voices should be central to their media representations. Participants use their stories to identify and explore an issue and develop a campaign or message based on their own understanding of their community. Generating stories helps participants understand how their experience shapes their knowledge and expertise and lays the groundwork for how community voices can be reflected in the media.

Media: Working with the Media*

This training explores how to work with various media venues and outlets. Participants analyze mainstream media’s representations of communities and use their voices and stories to explore an issue and develop an action plan, campaign, project or narrative that reflects their own knowledge and experience.

Community Research*

This training is for groups and institutions that want to do research in and with communities. Participants look at their roles, positions, and identities and how they enter a community space. The training explores different methods, skills, and tools that are useful within a PAR framework and builds on collaborative research and knowledge creation/gathering for sustainable partnerships.

Please consult our Resource Page for a searchable list of alternate activities and additional resources.

If you have any questions or would like additional support with the trainings, please don’t hesitate to contact us at info@parceo.org. We hope that these trainings will help strengthen your work, and we welcome any and all feedback.

*Coming to Website Soon!