Location
Does Reading the Label Really Help? A workshop on diversity
Fear, media, peer pressure and poor role models have helped to create a climate where name-calling, one-up-mansship, and a "what's-in-it-for-me?" mentality has flourished and thrived. The workshop shows us alternatives to destructive communication, and helps open the door to reconciliation. This workshop has helped youth groups, educators, women's groups, school systems. federal government employees and many others learn that we really can "all just get along." The workshop stresses "Personal Responsibility" and small steps as the beginning of what can be a very cathartic process. As we examine how "Ism's" (racism, sexism, ageism...) cause us to live in a fractured world, the workshop helps us see more clearly how we can make a difference... ONE PERSON AT A TIME...starting with ourselves. Very often, we label others and are labeled ourselves, and this labeling only helps to separate us and highlight our need for a common bond. If the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001 taught us anything, it is that when we seek to exclude and distrust each other, and allow walls to be built between us, it can have disastrous effects. This workshop attempts to teach us how to move beyond the barriers that separate us, and to begin to see and experience each other, without labels and stereotypes and preconceived notions.