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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nDonna Minter, Crixell Shell, and the Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute<\/a> (i.e. MN Peacebuilding) are finding new audiences and growing interest at the \u201cepicenter\u201d of the racial justice movement in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Minter and Shell, executive director and assistant executive director respectively, are both master trainers of the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience program<\/a>, based at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Scroll down to see Crixell Shell speak with STAR Lead Trainer Katie Manfield about systemic racism.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat started as a spark has turned into a movement,\u201d Shell wrote in a recent STAR e-zine article<\/a> about MN Peacebuilding\u2019s work. \u201cPeople are hungry for this information. We\u2019ve moved beyond \u2018trauma-informed\u2019 as a buzzword to respond to essential shifting in our community due to George Floyd\u2019s murder by police. Our conversations include racial justice and equity, and trauma is no longer something for solely the privileged to speak about — it\u2019s for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A recent news article in the Star Tribune<\/a>, the largest newspaper in Minnesota, highlights the organization\u2019s history and current broadening influence. Minter brought the first Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience training to her home state in 2010. Since then the organization has trained more than 5000 people in racial healing, trauma awareness, restorative justice and resilience and self-care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Minter and Shell believe the time is right for their racial restorative justice work to broaden and take hold, the article says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRight now, we\u2019re the epicenter of what\u2019s happening in terms of a social justice movement,\u201d said Shell, in the Star Tribune article. \u201cIn response to what\u2019s been happening, people have had a lot of pain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n MN Peacebuilding has been contracted by the City of Minneapolis for 15 trainings between now and fall for anyone who lives, works, and\/or plays in Minneapolis, among other expanding work. Representatives of organizations that have participated in MN Peacebuilding\u2019s trainings say they\u2019re effectively building on the foundation of trauma-referenced and historic-harms work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of her work, Shell also convenes monthly racial healing and learning talking circles as the Minneapolis affiliate of Coming to the Table<\/a>. The racial healing and reconciliation organization, which started at EMU and is now a program of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), brings together descendants of slave-owners and enslaved people. There are more than three dozen chapters in 16 states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Minter and Shell share the view that STAR\u2019s strategies are a foundational resource for empowerment to make and create healing and structural change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMN Peacebuilding creates space in communities to learn shared history, build connections, heal wounds and take nonviolent actions together for transformation,\u201d writes MN Peacebuilding\u2019s Communications Coordinator Gemma Eissa in the e-zine article titled \u201cMaking Minnesota the Peacebuilding Power State for All.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2019, Minter was honored with the Melanie Greenberg U.S. Peacebuilding Award of Excellence<\/a> from the Washington DC-based, international Alliance for Peacebuilding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For more information or to support MN Peacebuilding, visit their website www.mnpeace.org<\/a>. You can also purchase tickets to LUNAFEST<\/a>, a virtual women\u2019s film festival on Aug. 26, with proceeds benefiting MN Peacebuilding\u2019s racial and economic equity trainee scholarship fund and programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this installment of STAR’s \u201cCare Together\u201d video series<\/a>, MN Peacebuilding\u2019s assistant executive director Crixell Shell<\/strong> talks with STAR trainer Katie Mansfield about systemic racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nLearn more about systemic racism<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n