Toronto Women's Bookstore

Embodied Activism: Unpacking Our Practice and Building Our Power
with Tomee Sojourner

MONDAY evenings in NOVEMBER and DECEMBER
NOVEMBER 3, 10, 17, 24 and DECEMBER 1 and 8, from 6:30pm to 9pm @ TWB
Fee: $69 (No Refunds). Pre-registration and payment required.
**Please call to register. Enrollment limited to 15 participants.
Limited sliding scale spots available.
We regret our bathroom is not wheelchair accessible.

This introductory course will critically explore the methods and strategies of social change, social engagement, and creative intervention used by activists, educators, workers, and community members. Using an interactive and participatory format, participants will draw on their lived experiences and course materials to deepen their self-awareness, develop their
facilitation skills, and move toward critical creative self-reflection. Please note that the course content is shaped around the lived experiences of participants.

This course is open to First Nations women, two-spirited folks, women of colour, and trans folks of colour. New and experienced activists including educators, facilitators, and trainers are encouraged to take this course.

Week 1- Unpacking Our Practice
In this session, we will take a critical exploration of our practices as activists, educators, workers and community members. We will deal with complex questions that disrupt our existing understandings of how we do our 'work.'

Week 2- Dealing with Difficult Conversations
In this session, we will go through a series of activities and creative forms of expression to open up space to look at some strategies to engage and deal with difficult conversations.

Week 3- Role of Allies
In this session, we will explore how the role of 'ally' functions within our lived realities as activists.

Week 4- Creative Interventions
In this session, we will discuss some of the processes involved in developing creative socio-political interventions, including self-funded community-based projects.

Week 5-Self-Awareness & Self-Care
In this session, we will go into an initial reflective sojourn of self-awareness by exploring why and how we live out our activism on and
through our bodies? We will start the crucial conversation about self-care.

Week 6- Moving Forward: Building Our Power
This final session will be a time for presenting our creative projects and building our power through conscious self-engagement.

All participants will receive a course package with the required materials. No additional texts are required.

Participants are encouraged to self-identify any invisible and/or visible disabilities prior to the start date in order for the instructor to
incorporate accommodations into the course, so that there is open and engaged participation. Large print course materials will be available.

Instructor's Bio:
Tomee Sojourner is a Black diasporic, masculinized butch-identified lesbian with a learning disability. Tomee moves in the work world as a part-time professor, community/labour educator, activist, visual artist, writer, and Principal Consultant for Sojourner Diversity Consultants. She has an M.A in Social Justice and Equity Studies from Brock University, and a B.A. Honours
in Directed Interdisciplinary Studies, specializing in Discrimination and Resistance in Canadian Society, from Carleton University. Tomee grounds her work in an integrated feminist/womanist, queer, intersectional, transformative perspective