Thank you so much to our intergenerational team of 16 experienced Inclusive Travel Guides…

who did such a fabulous job of guiding 40 new Inclusive Leaders to explore, share and celebrate diversity. All along the way we all shared leadership in building a welcoming culture of inclusion. Within this safe, respectful, accessible and FUN container, we experienced fabulous participatory learning activities, GREAT workshops, Heart to Heart Groups, and so many conversations between people from very different backgrounds. Through this Participatory Education Process we developed our Inclusive Leadership skills for connecting with differences, communicating with compassion and responding to difficult situations with Anti-discrimination First Aid. We learned so much with each other and from each other about topics such as Coast Salish Territory, shifting from fight/flight/freeze reactions into mindful, flexible responding; what it is like to live with epilepsy, how to bring the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into our daily lives, what is inclusive masculinity?, how to make public spaces safe for families with young children and for youth, how to use a computer to communicate and so much more.

This all led up to an incredible Inclusive Community Celebration on Saturday evening with music, poetry, drama, and so much laughter.

And did we tell you about the snow?

Sunday was all about Action Planning.  Action Planning is a process of bringing together our Inclusive Leadership skills with our concerns and our passions.   Safe Youth Cowichan created an action plan for finding and creating more safe indoor and outdoor spaces for families to gather with their young children and with youth.

The A team from Headway, Victoria Epilepsy and Parkinson’s Centre presented their plan for creating an educational video and for continuing to build a vibrant support group for youth and young adults who live with epilepsy.

Individuals shared many plans for integrating Inclusive Leadership into travelling, groups we facilitate, our work-places, our studies, and our life-long passions such as inclusive masculinity, bringing women together to learn about painless childbirth options, supporting people who live with Alzheimers and their families, and communicating with compassion.

Students from Cowichan Secondary School are developing plans for shifting the culture of their school in more inclusive directions. A few of the plans in the works are:

• Students are planning to present what they learned at a staff meeting:“Kids teach teachers how to be more inclusive in an Inclusive Leadership workshop for staff. For example, we could teach teachers how to assess the situation so that they can figure out whether or not it’s just a joke or if it is bullying.”
• Students will be asking teachers to help them create structured opportunities for students to get to know their classmates: “Older students paired with younger students. Celebrate new students. Open communication, smiling, talking to new people. Activities that help us get to know more people and connect with others, so we all come together as one. Let’s get students sitting at the lunch tables with someone new. More interaction with the whole school” 
• Students hope facilitators from the Inclusive Leadership Co-operative will be able to bring Inclusive Leadership to their school. “We could have Anti-discrimination First Aid courses. We could do Inclusive Leadership activities in the flex blocks once a week such as practicing breathing and relaxing and flex lessons with a social focus.” 

Thank you again to everyone who was involved in our 2018 Inclusive Leadership Adventure. Thank you Debbie Campbell for all these wonderful photos.