Conocimiento 2019: Diverse Leadership, The Invisible Line that Divides and Unites Us

Conocimiento 2019 will be offered by Dr. Juan Carlos Arauz from E3- Education, Equity, Excellence from San Francisco California. This is a culturally relevant leadership development workshop for diverse student populations. This programs aims to build community, foster belongingness, and strengthen each organization’s capacity using popular education pedagogy. Our aim is to identify experiences that have developed one’s own story that has come to define our realities.  Conocimiento Principle by Roberto Vargas (Provida Leadership): The Conocimiento Principle recognizes that common unity begins with the process of shared awareness and understanding, or conocimiento. In essence, we must learn the basics of who each person is before we can evolve the trust and bonding required for unity and shared group power. With this principle in mind, all group efforts balance the focus on a task with a conscious effort to maximize relationships of shared awareness among participants. Meetings are begun by communicating the equal values of becoming community and accomplishing the task. There are shared introductions, the modeling of "who am I" by the facilitator, and the use of smaller groups or even dyads (two’s) for doing conocimiento or working on the task.  The Conocimiento Principle emphasizes the necessity of consciously creating community within the group to heighten the potential for personal growth and shared action. Increased bonding and trust in the group can lead to deeper sharing, greater insights, increased commitment to action, and the inspiration of feeling that you are greater than one person – you are part of a community.  Breakfast and lunch will be served!