Course
Embodied Somatic Abolitionism Cultural First Aid Communal Intensive
(ESACFA-CI) for Black Bodies
Session
Black Bodies (Visibly Melanated)
Dates 2025
June 18
July 30
August 20
Sept 10
Guide
Resmaa Menakem
About
An opportunity for Black bodies to do embodied work of supporting community through crisis together.
If you’ve already completed a training in psychological first aid, or PFA, thank you. Unfortunately, most trainings in psychological first aid offer zero training, grounding, or insights on the racialized aspects of trauma and emergencies. Yet in America today, many disasters, emergencies, and other traumatic events are racialized. This training fills that gap.
Embodied Somatic Abolitionism Cultural First Aid (ESACFA) works closely with the needs, signals, and energies of human bodies, both individually and communally. ESACFA can be practiced by anyone with the proper training, a malleable heart, a thickened skin, and a fortified mindset. Sooner or later, disaster will strike in your life, just as it does in everyone’s. This training can enable you to assist others as they experience trauma, shock, or confusion. It can also help you respond wisely when the unfolding events are racialized.
This can be especially valuable if you have a body of culture.
LEARN
Over four months we will:
- Become familiar with multiple forms of trauma and multiple forms of human resilience.
- Encounter a history of white-body supremacy as a form of terrorism and ferality.
- Learn and practice multiple prep reps. These are practices designed to condition, temper, and prepare your body for disasters that are highly racialized.
- Learn key elements of preplanning for highly stressful events, especially those that are racialized.
- Practice resource and well-being cultivation. This involves (re)discovering and (re)connecting with many supportive people, groups, communities, energies, and memories.
- Learn to pay close and careful attention to your body, including its signals from all your intelligences—your VIMBASIs.
SCHEDULE
Each Day
Black bodies will come together from 10am – 1pm CST
* The June 18th class time for folks who attended the 2024 Series is from 9:00am – 1:00pm. This is an additional hour of guidance regarding your role as a Community Tender (CT).
PreRequisites
Foundations in Embodied Somatic Abolitionism (FESA)
or
Foundations in Somatic Abolitionism
Black and Visibly Melanated Bodies
-
Four three-hour sessions
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A copy of the Embodied Somatic Abolitionism Cultural First Aid practice book.
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An optional one (1) hour consultation with Resmaa Menakem is available for a fee.