Beginning Tuesday, March 2nd and continuing each Tuesday evening until April 20th, ICA Canada’s Youth as Facilitative Leaders program is offering a unique program based on a book entitled 'The Courage to Lead...Transform Self, Transform Society.' It is based on the concept that 'in order to transform society, we first need to transform ourselves.' The emphasis of this program is on personal growth and reflection and will be of interest to anyone seeking to develop themselves as leaders. It is about the foundational context for leadership and can help provide a means to explore complex social and personal issues.

The leadership stances explored in the book each have the potential to change your life and community if adopted. The message is simple: if you relate authentically to life, to yourself, to society and to the world, you can start the process of social change from where you are right now. The structure of each class revolves around lively group discussions and dynamic group activities based on readings from the book and personal experiences. Chapter titles are listed below and for additional information, please contact Staci or Garret.


Testimonial:

“Courage to Lead is an incredible course! At a time when I was feeling indecisive and anxious about my future and my place in society, CTL offered an amazing amount of support and guidance. Being a recent graduate without a clear career path or community can often be an isolating and discouraging experience. This course created a framework for bigger issues & questions and provided me with a language to talk about what I was experiencing.”


REGISTRATION INFORMATION:

Each Tuesday from March 2nd to April 20th
6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

ICA Canada office
655 Queen St. E. Toronto, ON (Queen & Broadview)

$125 course + book, $100 if you already have the book

$75 for students/self or underemployed course + book, $65 for students/self or underemployed if you already have the book

To register, contact Staci Kentish at 416-691-2316 x 236 or at skentish@icacan.ca

For more information contact Staci or Garret (garretkeown@gmail.com)

Payments will be accepted via PayPal on the ICA website shortly, cash or cheque (to ICA Canada) are also acceptable. To receive the book prior to the course start, payments must be received in advance. Reading assignments will be given during the first course night. While payments can be made when the course starts, participants must be registered beforehand. Seats are limited to 20, early registration is preferred.

Courage to Lead Contents:

Section A – Relation to Life
Everyday Care: Care is Everywhere
Disciplined Lucidity: Acknowledging Life As It Is
Continued Affirmation: The Yes to All of Life

Section B – Relation to the Self
Self-conscious Reflection: Experiencing your Experience
Meaning in the Mundane: Finding the Windows to Spirit Depth
Profound Vocation: I Can Make a Difference

Section C – Relation to the World
The Comprehensive Perspective: Resisting the Urge to Reduce
Historical Involvement: Climbing Onto the Stage of History
Inclusive Responsibility: Shouldering the Load

Section D – Relation to Society
The Social Pioneer: A Wedgeblade Inserted
The Transestablishment Style: The Operational Approach to Social Pioneering
Signal Presence: Demonstrating Radical Living

We're hosting a Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Basics Workshop in our office on November 28th & 29th. The workshop is being put on by Spiralis and trainers Valerie Lanctot-Bedard and Jean-Phillipe Bouchard (www.spiralis.ca)

NVC is a way of focusing our attention that allows us to foster more satisfying, authentic and respectful relationships. By understanding the habitual communication styles that block our access to compassion, we can make powerful choices every moment to live in harmony with our values.

Mastering NVC skills and consciousness can deepen all our relationships. All human interactions can be revisited this way and brought to more depth and truth. It allows us to build lasting relationships, heal old conflicts and enrich one another through our differences. It is a profound celebration of humanity!

For more info visit www.spiralis.ca

Beginning Tuesday, October 6th, and continuing each Tuesday until November
17th, ICA Canada is offering a unique seven-week leadership program based on
a book entitled The Courage to Lead - Transform Self, Transform Society.

This non-traditional leadership program has an emphasis on personal growth
and reflection, and will be of interest to anyone seeking to develop his or
her self as a leader in all walks of life. It is about the foundational
context for leadership. The study is not about leadership skills
development.

For further information on the study, or to register, please see

http://www.icacan.ca/courses.htm

Participants have said:

An excellent book for self-reflection, personal growth and a better
understanding of leadership. I will recommend this course to anyone who is
willing to be challenged. Thanks so much, it was so worthwhile. I have grown
so much!

I have acquired a greater sense of social responsibility and the small and
the big ways that people show courage ­ so I will look to ask myself how I
can care in my community.

If you could change anything about the education system in which you are a part, what would it be? Me, I would make it start later. I don’t mind going extra hours into the evening as long as I get my nine hours of sleep. I would like to have outdoor classes when the weather turns nice (or at least windows that let in air… my high school didn’t have those). I would like to have small classes of no more than twenty people (the atmosphere is so much nicer, and everyone gets paid attention to). I would like to have teacher evaluations at the end of the year (or video record teachers when they least expect it to prove/disprove how much you are learning as a student). There’s a lot I would change.

Thankfully, someone is willing to do it.

I think all of you will be sick of hearing about my mother, but she’s writing another book. And this time, it’s about the education system. I happily tell her my woes and my worries about the various teachers I have had. She knows how frustrated I get, and how inspired I become. Some classes I absolutely loved; others I faked sick to get out of. It takes a delicate balance of them to stay sane.

But, imagine if every class was ideal. Imagine if every subject was catered to how children learn as opposed to what the government thinks children should learn. It would completely revolutionize education.

My mum is writing a book on education and neuroscience and the marriage of those two principles. However, she is lacking input on the detriments/positive things about the education system as it stands. If you feel like sharing what you like and/or dislike about the education system, any feedback would be appreciated. Visit www.alannamitchell.com to get in contact with my mum and tell her how you really feel about your school system.

Calista

Hey, everyone.

Has anyone ever noticed how incredibly difficult it is to get youth to volunteer? Or to go one step further and keep them volunteering? It is ridiculously hard to do.

One of the largest problems I find with volunteering (and this is just from personal experience) is that there is no tangible reward. For me, the greatest incentive to volunteer was the graduation requirement of 40 community service hours. Then again, that was my high school mentality. Now, I do it all the time. The summer is an especially good time for me to volunteer because it gives me something to do. I hate being idle.

I do know a few people who like to volunteer. My cousin is a prime example: She came home recently from a seven-month stint in Rwanda. She had no reason for going; she just wanted to help out, to see the world. Both of which she managed spectacularly.

One of my friends is also avid about donating her time. She has seven days left in her nine-month experience with Katimavik, and I’m kind of afraid what will happen when she comes home. As a person who has to be busy sixty seconds of every minute, sixty minutes of every hour, twenty four hours a day, she is going to lose her mind with the idleness of summer. Add to that the Katimavik experience of only two free evenings per week, and you have a ticking time bomb on your hands! (www.katimavik.org)

So, that’s two people. Out of… twenty? Thirty? Maybe I’m sitting in the wrong circle, or maybe everyone I know is still in the high school mentality. Both my cousin and my friend were never in that mentality to begin with.

My point is that volunteering is a great thing to do. The rewards, as I said earlier, are not tangible, but often far outweigh any paper or certificate that might be earned. With the risk of sounding sappy, they are emotional rewards that make each person feel better about him or herself.

The reward is the experience itself