Conflict Transformation Circles for Community Gardeners

Conflict is natural, and can happen even in the most well organized garden group or with the best of friends. How can we hold space for and resolve conflict within our groups? In these monthly sessions, mediators Skye Roper-Moses and Michelle Jackson will facilitate discussion circles for community gardeners to bring their challenges to the group and collectively generate solutions. The facilitators will model skills for holding space that gardeners can bring back to their own groups to begin to develop a practice for addressing and transforming conflict in the garden.

All sessions meet 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Session 1 Theme: (Dec. 16) What happens when tensions rise due to differences in communication because of personal values?

Session 2 Theme: (Jan. 13) How do age & gender affect garden communities when in conflict?

Session 3 Theme: (Feb. 16) How do we communicate in our garden community when we don’t feel included in the space?

Session 4 Theme: (March 16) Strategies for understanding cultural nuances within the garden community to thwart conflict?

This will be a confidential space that is not recorded. It is not necessary to attend all the sessions.

About the Facilitators

Michelle Jackson: Community Gardener since 2008. Columbia University MS in Negotiation & Conflict Resolution, Earth Institute Fellow. Facilitator. Environmental & public space enthusiast.

Skye Roper-Moses: Adjunct professor at John Jay College. Conflict coach and mediator. Formerly Restorative Justice Coordinator at New York Peace Institute. Columbia University MS in Negotiation & Conflict Resolution.