Facilitated by Michael Kourabas.
Date: Thursday 18 November, 2021
Ttime: 13.00 GMT
Why White People Need To Keep Talking About Race
Trained as a lawyer with experience in international human rights law, I have spent the last five years co-leading grantmaking, impact assessment, and strategy design work at a public foundation and international human rights organization. At all stages of my career, I have leveraged skills in relationship-building, systems thinking, problem solving, and stakeholder engagement to help individuals and organizations strengthen their capacity and understand and protect their rights. I am on a life-long journey to recognize and dismantle systemic racism and patriarchy in myself and my communities. I am also a dedicated meditator, certified in mindfulness training by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and the proud father of a creative and spirited 8-year-old daughter.
Context and Background
We are delighted to invite Michael Kourabas, Director of a Public Foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to speak about white privilege seen through his personal lens; for him, it was clear that, as a white person, he was caught up in a racialised system that could only be dismantled by understanding and bravely acknowledging his own blindspots and biases. For many years, he has brought organisations and foundations to their learning edge on this issue holding challenging spaces for perhaps some of the most important conversations of our time.
This comes with plenty of discomfort, push back and alienation in a politicised world and Michael will share why it was important for him to stand up to this oppressive status quo and commit himself to doing something, when it would have been all too easy to do nothing.
With this talk, our intention is to offer you a space to listen into this subject, to become more aware, to ask questions from the heart, to support your journey with diversity, equity and inclusion. We are doing this in the only way we know how – through human connection – which is why we are delighted to have Michael share his personal journey and what he is seeing in this field. Please do join us on the 18th November.
This might be interesting if:
- you are navigating ethnic and cultural diversity in the workplace
- you are leading an NGOs and social enterprises and want to have impact in the world and realise that you need to explore your own perspectives and assumptions
- you are a grant makers who is moving away from a western centralised approach towards a participatory model
- you realise that you are living with blindspots around your whiteness and that this needs to be addressed in order to move effectively in a world of multi-cultural relationships, teams and organisations.