Community Leadership Development Program
The Community Leadership Development Program (CLDP) is an application-based mentorship program for emerging and established student groups that want to develop initiatives that engage their communities in: creating safer spaces by and for systemically marginalized students, and integrating anti-oppression, EDIA, and social justice into their student leadership.
Overview
Who is this for: Students interested in learning how to start groups or initiatives that engage their communities in: safer spaces, social justice, and EDIA work by and for systemically marginalized and allied students.
How to join: Teams of 3 or more students in established or newly-forming groups will apply in early September. Successful teams will be informed in late September.
Pulling from foundations of community organizing, the CLDP staff believe that the best way to support your community is through listening to what issues and needs are most pressing and involving them in the work to address those issues. Through this program you will learn how to effectively engage your systemically marginalized community in:
- Creating safer spaces
- Developing social justice initiatives
- Implementing equity, diversity, inclusivity, and access (EDIA)
Successful teams will participate in weekly 3-hour meetings/ training sessions. Meetings and trainings will be in-person on the Fort Garry campus with some possibilities for virtual meetings. The CLDP is a potential two-term commitment.
What do we mean by newly-forming or emerging groups?
Students may recognize that there are no groups on campus that currently serve their community or specific goals and want to respond by starting something new. If your group does not exist yet but you have three or more students interested in starting it, this is you.
Why do we ask for teams of three?
This approach to community engagement used in this program requires working with people, not on behalf of people. This means intentionally developing the leadership of multiple people within the community so that more people are empowered with the skills, knowledge, and relationships you need to have the impact you desire.
What do we mean by a potential two-term commitment?
Successful applicant teams will be accepted for the Fall term. In December, teams and their mentor will determine collaboratively if they will continue into the Winter term.
Schedule
Successful teams will participate in weekly 3-hour meetings/training sessions from the first week of October to the first week of December and, if continuing, mid-January to the first week of April.
In the application form, teams will provide a minimum of two times when their entire team is available each week for a 3-hour period. Based on coordinator capacity, each successful team will be assigned a meeting time from their provided availability.
What will the weekly sessions entail?
Sessions will alternate between trainings and meetings. Trainings will introduce topics relevant to developing student’s groups/ initiatives, and will include homework to be completed between sessions.
Meetings will include time for updates, co-working, and practicing with new tools and resources. Over the course of the program, students will watch coordinators demonstrate best practices for meetings, eventually graduating to running meetings on their own.
Is attendance each week required for all team members?
Yes, the method of teaching that the CLDP uses is to intentionally develop the leadership of multiple people within the community. This means that all team members learn the skills and gain the knowledge to be able to do the work. This helps to distribute power across the team and prevents work from being held up if one person is missing.
Can the meeting times change from week to week?
No, keeping a consistent schedule is a requirement for teams to continue in the program.
What to expect
What we expect from teams:
- Attend all weekly sessions in full, arranging your schedule as necessary to prioritize CLDP program dates.
- A commitment to try the CLDP approach to community engagement and leadership development, using the method we teach throughout the duration of the program.
- Provide program feedback at the end of each term.
What teams can expect from the CLDP staff:
- Regular communication, reminders, and accountability.
- Direct support and mentorship in relation to the work you undertake as part of CLDP.
- Resources, tools, and information for working in community engaged ways as you build your group/initiative.
Expected content:
Term one
By the end of term one, successful teams will have determined a collective issue to be addressed and identified a core audience that wants to do something about that issue.
Topics covered in term one will include:
- Different forms of community work and how they meet different needs.
- How to hold 1-1 relational meetings.
- Building capacity and developing leadership in your team.
- Collectivizing and politicizing issues.
Term two
By the end of term two, successful teams will have developed, run, and assessed a community initiative/project/event series that addresses the need identified in term one.
In term two, topics will depend on the specific initiative determined by the community but could include some of the following:
- Developing, executing, and assessing a community initiative/project/event series.
- Goal setting and how to align activities with intended impact.
- Developing partnerships and identifying your spectrum of allies.
- Ethical considerations for developing a budget.
- Effecting and equity-informed facilitation techniques.
- And more!
It has honestly been an incredible experience being able to develop, deliver, and reflect on our programming to this level, and every step of the journey [our mentor] was there providing exactly the right supports we needed.
Ethan Wong
The Queer Agenda member
A peek at past programming
This year, CLDP is incorporating elements of programming previously delivered through the Social Justice Hub (SJH). In previous years CLDP and SJH have offered the following:
- What is community and how do you build it?
- Goal setting, planning, and assessment
- Ethical considerations for budgeting
- Succession plans
- Community organizing and forming partnerships
- Equity facilitation and best practices for meetings
Student groups/communities that have participated in CEL mentorship programming:
- Indigenous Circles of Community Care
- Kaarigar
- SPIRIT (Supporting Psychology Initiatives for Racialized Individuals and Trainees)
- The Circle We Belong
- The Queer Agenda
- Trans+ Chill
- UM QTBIPOC
Program staff
Madison Reed (she/they) has been a program coordinator for 5 years with previous experiences as a member and executive of a variety of student groups. Shaped by their experiences as a queer, non-binary woman and her educational background in science and sociology, Maddi is passionate about feminist and queer issues, and reproductive justice.
Mandalyn Unger (they/she) has been a coordinator, facilitator, and community organizer for over 10 years. Guided by lived experiences of queerness and disability, and supported by an education in Community Advocacy from the University of Winnipeg, Mandalyn has worked for climate justice, queer and trans liberation, and public health in solidarity with anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements in both their professional and personal capacities.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact madison.reed@umanitoba.ca.
Community Leadership Development Program application form
Applications close September 20th at 11:59 pm.